


Take Anything You Need

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Getting Back Together, Gun Violence, Gunshot Wounds, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:27:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Ten years after Frank told Henry to get lost, he crashes back into Henry's life.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Henry Russo
Comments: 48
Kudos: 45





	1. The Sign of a Dying Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inbox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/gifts).



> This fic for various reasons is a sort of canon divergent AU whereby I'm not going to stick too strong to any of the things that have happened in Frank's canon comics run since he broke his partnership with Henry. Just a sort of what-if thing of them being slammed back together a decade later, when Henry's had some time to work on his self-love issues a little.
> 
> I have five chapters planned and three of them drafted, out, but given that this was originally a one shot, it's safe to say it's sort of grown legs, so it might end up being seven or eight chapters long. The rating WILL be going up and the tags will be updated to reflect that change.

Henry doesn't miss how things were.

Actually, honestly, he doesn't miss any of it. He doesn't miss home, or his mom, or neighbours who unfailingly minded their own business even if the music was too loud. He doesn't miss being afraid, doesn't miss forever worrying if today was the day, or tomorrow, of if something had happened while he was sleeping -- he doesn't miss it. Not any of it. 

He doesn't.

That doesn't mean he doesn't sometimes think about it. How it had been, how _right_ it all had seemed for a while, how bad it all broke in the end. How it had been, how it could have gone.

Doesn't mean, sometimes, when he's scared or lonesome, he doesn't privately, secretly wish that it had all played out to a different, gentler tune.

A full decade later, Henry can still remember, perfectly, Frank telling him to leave. Frank telling him he never wanted to see Henry again -- that he'd kill him, if he did. Henry can _see_ the look on Frank's face, the hollowness in his eyes. Ten years isn't near long enough to dull the pain of that, the ache of being so handily dismissed.

He'd tried moving on. He tried every goddamn day, to do good where he could, doing... doing _good,_ in simple ways, in ways that didn't get anyone killed. 

Just, he couldn't do it in New York, turns out. 

Henry figures that trauma -- and he's mature enough to admit he's probably just trauma through and through at this point -- did a bunch of funny things to a guy. He'd tried therapy, tried _talking about it,_ but after the second soft-spoken, too-calm man in a neat suit and quiet room gently suggested that he speak to the police (or the feds, or whatever task force was currently looking for him) 'For Frank's Own Good', he'd given that enterprise up as a bad job.

He couldn't talk about it because anyone he could pay to listen was dead set that part of healing was him narcing on Frank, and he couldn't stay in New York because he knew Frank didn't leave loose ends dangle long. 

So, he'd run from it. He'd always been good at looking after himself, and maybe it was true that nowhere would ever be like NYC, nowhere would ever be _home_ again, but Chicago was -- well, Chicago was okay. 

It was good enough that he could settle there, lie his way through therapy to start dealing with some of the shit, and the things he couldn’t talk around he just buried. Who was going to dig for them? He was nobody. Chicago had its own business to see done, its own chaos, its own concerns, and Henry could get lost in that. He could be swallowed in a crowd that would never know him, and he could stop worrying about running into Frank -- or anyone else familiar -- some dark night.

That was the point, eight hundred miles from a home he'd at least _known,_ if not loved. Finding somewhere he could feel _alive_ again, where he could stop _flinching_ at the glimpse of a certain silhouette, a certain breadth of shoulder, the particular militant pace of booted feet. Cross half the country and settle somewhere outside all that, put it in the rear view.

Laying on the floor of the social services outreach office he worked in, heart hammering as he listens to the assholes with guns storming around the offices, demanding the information they want while tearing the place apart looking for it, Henry catches himself _hoping_ for what he's spent a decade half-fearing. Even if Frank _did_ go ahead and kill him, _someone_ needs to put these animals in the ground.

One of them had shot the Outreach Director, Beth, when she'd run out of the office to see who was shouting. Another one of the bastards had hit Henry's filing assistant so hard her jaw had dislocated, and Henry was very afraid that she wasn't going to make it out if help didn't arrive soon.

Beth definitely wasn't going to make it. The woman these assholes were trying to track down wouldn't make it, either, if they find her.

_Henry_ won't make it out of this, if they grab him and demand the information. He'll die before he gives it up.

So he lays on the floor and tries to be unnoticeable, eight hundred miles from Frank's usual stomping grounds, and he fights the impulse to gag and tear up at the smell of blood and gunpowder and terror. It smells like the past, and the memories that bouquet of aroma brings forth are universally horrible. Henry lays on the floor and tries not to remember why he hates that smells so bad, and in spite of himself, he _hopes._

He hopes for the only savior who ever came for him. Even if Frank really meant it when he said he'd kill Henry if he ever saw him again, Henry hopes for him, wishes for him.

Maybe sometimes hope isn't such a four letter word.

He doesn't look up when he hears one of the windows smash apart, heavy boots on cheap linoleum. He doesn't look when one of the armed men screams, or when a new panic breaks out. He doesn’t lift his head when a body slams into the wall to his left and then drops, limp, to the floor; he tries not to react at all to the bloody smell of Frank doing his best work. 

This is not the first time Henry’s been a hostage, or civilian in the line of fire. Henry stays low, hands clasped over the tender skin at the back of his neck, protecting the base of his skull, and keeps his body between the source of the gunfire and Joan’s prone form, shielding her. She was a terrible filing assistant, but he’d be damned if he lets worse harm come to her than already has.

The noise above and behind them is chaotic, catastrophic, but it’s horrifically recognizable. Ten years and Henry _knows_ that ragged breathing, the almost-rhythm of fists meeting flesh then a burst of gunfire, the groan of the wounded, the chuff of something like laughter from Frank. Henry _knows_ it. It’s beaten deep into the rhythm of his own body, it seems, the throb of his migraines, the pounding rush of his pulse at the edge of a panic attack.

It’s a hitch in that rhythm that makes Henry break. He’s kept himself small and has carefully, slowly maneuvered to provide a better shield for Joan, and then something crashes, a new voice shouts, “Weapons down, hands up!” and a single shot is fired. Everything goes quiet and Henry _has_ to look.

Frank’s rhythm stutters, the usually implacable beat of him hitching, and then when Henry lifts his head, he can see blood drenching Frank’s thigh, black fabric wet and clinging, a ragged hole in dark denim where the bullet has torn through. It’s a moment, just a moment of hesitation before everything starts moving, and Henry can’t help thinking, _Christ, it’s been ten years._

Ten years. Henry’s almost thirty now; Frank’s the wrong side of fifty and still trying to play this like he's in his prime. In that dull pause in which Henry raises his head, one of the thugs cracks Frank across the face with the stock of his rifle and Frank catches the gun on the down swing and off-handedly shoots the bastard in the stomach, yanking the gun free as he turns to face the cop who’d shot him in the leg.

Someone shouts, the cop with the gun tries to tell Frank to put his gun -- gun, like he’s got just the one -- down, and then someone else’s gun goes off and the cop flinches back toward the door he’d busted in through. He’s jumpy, the thugs are too, because now there’s three fronts of this fight and one of those fronts is The Punisher. 

There will be more cops soon, and this will get uglier before it gets any better. 

Henry doesn’t think. There’s no time for thinking; things only seem to have slowed down for him because of the shock. Because he can’t stop thinking about how much blood is already outside of Frank, the ragged open meat of his torn open leg. How quick does blood loss become debilitating? How far can Frank get before he blacks out?

The body on the ground next to Henry, the asshole Frank had thrown into a wall, has a number of weapons on him. Henry recognizes the canister of a smoke grenade, as well as several flash bangs and a handgun. Any weapon is a risk, especially with the number of people now running in panic.

He grabs the smoke grenade, pulls the pin. Whips it into the fray; he feels lucky when it lands between the cop and the rest of them, rapidly spewing thick, obfuscating smoke. 

Frank’s gun fires into the growing cloud. Another man drops, dead before he hits the floor. The cop shouts a curse and backs away, lost in the rapidly expanding smoke. Henry is on his knees. Everything is in slow motion except Henry’s heartbeat; he feels like he’s right on the edge of a panic attack. Frank shoots again; someone curses, rough and furious. Henry is on his feet. Frank turns, stumbles. Not bad, but enough.

If he kills Henry, he can at least wait until after Henry gets him the fuck out of here. Henry catches roughly two hundred pounds of beef against his shoulder, providing support. Frank’s body feels so hot against him, and Henry feels more than a little sick with himself for finding himself _satisfied_ , pleased on some level at how _easy_ this still is. How his body just _remembers_ holding Frank's weight, taking the lead as he half-drags, half-guides Frank beyond the lobby, into the back, away from the screaming while the rest of the room is panicking. 

The really shocking thing, forgetting that Frank shouldn't be here in the first place, is how Frank _allows it._

"Please tell me you've got the van parked close," Henry manages between each heavy breath, taking more of Frank's weight than he thinks Frank means to allow. There's a savage sort of glee in that idea, uncomfortable as it is -- he's helping, whether Frank likes it or not, whether it's endangering himself or not, and Frank isn't just _letting_ him, he's unconsciously putting more on Henry than he strictly has to. That has to mean something. "This isn't gonna work for a long trip."

For a moment, Frank digs his heels in, and he's so heavy that Henry can't really drag him if he fights at all. In that moment, Henry feels positive that Frank's going to push him away, shut the whole thing down before it can go any further. Maybe he'd shove Henry down and blow his brains out before he even saw the gun move. 

Henry knows Frank's done harder things, _colder,_ and he _did_ warn Henry last time what he'd do if their paths crossed again. Frank wasn't one for hollow threats -- or broken promises, either.

Then, Frank grunts a low noise and lets them take another heavy step forward, carrying more of his own weight again as he says, "Parked out by Saint James."

Cursing under his breath, Henry starts working a plan out in his head, letting the little bits of information come together to form solid bones they can actually work from. With Frank, it was always easier to keep plans as loose and the goal as monosyllabically clear as possible; Frank's style tended to need a lot of extra room to maneuver on the fly. 

It's weird, kind of perversely satisfying, how easily Henry can slide back into that way of thinking. How driven he is to be useful, _helpful._

"Chances are, there's gonna be cops in the alley. Two, maybe four," Henry explains, talking through his teeth as he keeps dragging them forward, rushing them. They're not fast enough to outrun the smoke bomb, and neither of them had a mask, so air is coming short for them both. Small consolation is, Henry knows the halls well enough to travel them mostly blind, and from the sound of it, everyone was trying to rush out the front doors, now that the thugs were down and Frank had disappeared. "My car's parked around the block. Put your gun to my head. I'm your hostage."

Really, these days, it's statistically likely that the cops will open fire anyway, whether there's a clear hostage situation or not. Press coverage would even find a way to spin it to make a hostage death worth it, or even a positive. That makes encouraging Frank to put a loaded gun to his head a very stupid risk, but it's the best chance they have. Honestly, it's the _only_ chance they have of getting out of here without any more injuries, and Henry...

Well, Frank's clear-headed enough for strategy to matter to him, clearly. He wouldn't shoot Henry while there's an obvious tactical advantage to having him alive, probably. So Henry maybe doesn't completely _trust_ Frank, but he'll do what he has to here.

The muzzle pressed against his jaw is warm, there's a thick, acrid smell to the heated metal that makes Henry feel immediately nauseous. Frank's grip on him, the arm slung over his shoulder, gets tighter, even though Frank is still using Henry for the bulk of his support. 

All of it makes Henry want to struggle, bolt, run, but he doesn't. He can't -- even if he _could_ somehow slip Frank's grip, Frank needs his help and Henry can't run from that. He just can't.

Bursting through the back door, Henry feels the shift of Frank's grip, the way he puts more of his weight on his own legs and how that must hurt. Frank's gun suddenly isn't just nestled against Henry's jaw, it's shoved there, Frank's hold on him more of a threat than anything and Henry scrambles at the arm clutching around him, holding his body against Frank like a shield. 

It's an act, Henry tries to tell himself; it's all an act, Frank's in on it, they're both in on it, he's safer now than he was just ten minutes go. It's not real, Frank's not actually a hairsbreadth from ventilating Henry's skull.

Still, when one of the predicted cops -- there's only two of them, thank fuck -- cocks his gun, the sound Henry makes is more a sob than anything, and he didn't even have to _try_ for that high note of panic.

"Don't shoot, don't shoot, please, god," He babbles, leaning against Frank until he takes the hint and starts inching in the direction Henry's straining, even as he's panting and eyeing the cops, every bit the wild-eyed crazy gunman the news media loves to paint him as. "Please, don't shoot, god, don't --"

Henry feels it when Frank yanks the gun away from his face; the drag of warm metal against the blade of his jaw, the bunch and ripple of Frank’s massive arms as he adjusts his grip. Frank straightens up and suddenly Henry’s feet aren’t even on the ground, and his fingers aren’t clawing at Frank as a ruse anymore at all. Frank swings the gun at the cops and both of them jump out of the way. Before either recovers, Frank drags Henry around the corner and sets him on his feet.

Leans on him, like nothing just happened. Like Henry doesn’t have Frank’s torn skin under his nails, bloody furroughs dug in Frank’s forearm.

The cops don’t give chase. Another miracle, if that’s what any of this could be called. Frank doesn’t say another goddamn word -- hasn’t said a single thing to Henry outside of where he’d parked his stupid van -- until they make it to Henry’s beat-up old Ford Escort. Then, he leans against the hood more than Henry, teeth grit before reaching for the passenger door and yanking it open, glowering at Henry. 

“You drive,” he grinds out, dropping his bloody, sweaty body into the passenger seat and slamming the door behind him. 

What the hell can Henry do but agree?

Frank’s grip on his guns is white-knuckle, but he doesn’t question it when Henry drives in the opposite direction of the church Frank claimed to be parked near. Henry elects to take that as agreement that they’re better off driving around for awhile before they ditch the Escort and trade up to the battle van. 

They just have to keep Frank going that long.


	2. Carried it All So Well

About fifteen minutes into the drive, before Henry has fully figured out exactly where it would be best to go, Frank passes out. If Henry hadn’t been glancing over every few minutes, he’d never have noticed -- Frank hasn’t broken from stolid, total silence. 

For a second, Henry thinks he should wake him. Something about sleeping after a concussion -- or did they debunk that? And was he really willing to get himself stabbed, shot, or wrist-broke on a maybe? 

Not his job to look out for Frank’s health, and how fucked up is it that admitting that _stings?_ He should be fucking elated -- he should be looking for the nearest alley to dump Frank off in if he wasn’t going to leave him for the cops, but _that’s_ the thought that makes him feel sick. The idea of abandoning Frank, or maybe just the idea of letting him leave already makes Henry feel terrible, cold and sickly and panicky.

That, of course -- the visceral _wanting_ for Frank to stay -- just made Henry feel grosser still, knowing that he should know better and unable to do anything about the physiological response to the idea. 

People, the general population, insofar as they're aware of him, tend to think Frank Castle is stone. Rock steady, emotionless, uncaring; you'll break yourself against him before he so much as chips. 

Henry happens to know Frank a little better than most. Maybe not better than anyone, but sure as fuck better than whoever's been writing for the papers lately -- buncha bullshit hype about the psychotic Punisher and his bloodthirsty murder spree though New York's criminal elite. 

And okay, okay, Henry… Henry gets it, kind of. Frank cultivated that image. Honed it, tended it, like the world's grimmest gardener. He needs people to think he's a machine, unshakable, too dumb to be scared and to angry to be stopped. 

But Henry _knows_ Frank. 

Henry has slapped gauze and bandages on Frank's bleeding wounds, he’s _stapled_ the man closed. He's watched Frank sleep, watched the way he wakes up, fast and too sharp or slow and syrupy, dragging himself on for another day. Henry has watched Frank die. He's seen him resurrected, seen him restored from roughly-cobbled corpse to living, breathing, whole. 

Henry knows Frank.

Even a decade later, long-since kicked to the curb, Henry knows Frank. 

Frank doesn’t want anyone to see him as a person, doesn’t want people to be attached to him. Henry’s seen enough to know what happens to people who _do_ get attached; the blood, the loss, the death. Frank can make nice with kids, with victims, with people who will glide, glacial, out of his life as soon as they get what they need from him. 

But those who tried to stick it out… those who wanted more than just to pass by, grazed by his presence, who wanted to help, wanted to -- wanted. 

Those who _wanted_ Frank, they were the ones that took the worse punishment. They became _Frank’s_ punishment, even as they inevitably wound up at the top of Frank’s list.

It always, always came back to punishment with Frank. Henry’s had a long time to think about it -- ten fucking years, looking over his shoulder, impulsively keeping tabs, _wanting_ something that was over and done and would _never_ be his -- and he really does think that what Frank does might be a brutal sort of necessity, but no one pays higher for it than the man himself. Frank _loses_ , even when he wins.

And so it’s easier, Henry thinks, for Frank to cut everyone away. Pare his life back to the necessities of his job, not because he ‘works better alone’, or whatever hard-ass militant tough-guy bullshit he might claim, but because it hurts him less. If Frank’s got no one to lose, no one close enough to hurt when they come back to stab him in the back or end up in the crossfire, then there’s less to wind up hurting him at the end of every mission.

Frank had gone out of his way to make Henry dislike him. He wanted it to be easier, when Henry wasn’t around anymore. If he made sure Henry wasn’t going to stick around then he wouldn’t let himself get used to his presence, so it wouldn’t mean anything when he wasn’t there one day. And it should have made it so Henry would be relieved to be free of him, too -- it _should have._

In the end, Henry decides to take Frank to Joan’s apartment. He knew where the spare key was, because Joan had no family in the city and had asked Henry to feed her cat for her when she was out of town visiting them. 

There was little chance of anyone showing up to get things for Joan -- if she’d made it, if him getting to Frank hadn’t gotten her trampled or forgotten and _there’s_ a fun thought to shove right the fuck back out of his head -- and Joan had laminate floors in her kitchen and a religiously stocked first aid kit. Anything he needed to patch Frank up, or at least, anything he needed for things he could _do,_ would be in Joan’s closet, where no one was going to think to look for him in the next few hours. 

Even if the cops somehow managed to put everything together, which they might, given time, there was no way they'd manage it in a few hours. They might figure out who exactly Henry is, his history with Frank, and that he hadn't been taken hostage at all but rather have aided and abetted Frank, but it would take them more time than Henry was willing to sit still in the city. He'd have them out of here long before anyone suggested checking his friend's homes.

 _Then what_ is the question that cycles, maddening, through his head as he's crossing into Roseland. He's rapidly approaching their exit, driving by muscle memory as his brain goes into overdrive trying to figure out the right moves, figure out a plan. Next to him, Frank begins to snore, slipping from blacked out unconscious to really sleeping. He's no help, but where planning is concerned that's not exactly new.

Frank was always more of a big picture guy than a details man. When he _did_ have a plan, Christ knew he wasn't sharing it until he absolutely had to, because if he froze everyone else out, kept everyone at arm's length while he held his cards tight to his chest, maybe he didn't have to worry about them trying to hold on to him. Keep him from killing himself, or losing himself to his stupid fucking war.

No, even if Frank was awake, he wouldn't be any help in figuring out what needs to be done here. There's nothing Henry can do to stop the rising edge of panic to his own circuitous thoughts -- _then what, then what, then what?_

What Frank seemed to want was for the whole world to think he was carved from stone, that he was machine, unattached and pointless to become attached to. He _wanted_ people like Henry, people who were willing to put up with his bullshit and _try_ sticking with him, to _stop._ Wasn't that a good enough reason -- look past whatever else Henry may or may not have done to Frank, wasn't the fact that he'd willingly gone right back to sticking his neck out for Frank enough of an unforgivable behaviour for Frank to kill him before anything else?

The laugh that claws its way out of Henry's throat is thin and a little too wild for his tastes. He sounds like he's losing it, teeth grit to muffle the sound, and he can feel the way his eyes have gone wide, so he probably looks it, too. Thank god he'd paid his fee for casual Friday, gone to work in an old black band shirt and jeans; he and Frank almost match, two white dudes in all black. Different genres of the same fashion scene, maybe. No one who wasn't really _looking_ would see anything more noteworthy than a couple punks in a beat up old car. 

So they were fine, right now. It was fine, they were fine, they could do this, a couple hours til it would be safe to go out and grab the van, and then get the fuck out of dodge. 

After that -- well, after that, who gave a shit? The only people who would miss Henry just had their whole world shook, one skinny counselor vanishing was the least of anyone's concerns. And he would have to vanish, there was no way to explain the Punisher kidnapping him and then just letting him go, so unless Henry wanted to sit in interviews with every goddamn cop in the city, run the risk of being charged with obstruction when he refused to give them anything, his whole life here was in the trash now.

Another ugly laugh sneaks its way out of him, but this one is thankfully a bit more moderated, almost angry. Angry would be appropriate, angry would make _sense,_ but mostly what he feels is a wild mix of exhilaration and frustration. Fear and a horrible sort of excitement. 

Just another hope lost to Henry thanks to Frank, that's all. Just another place he'll never be able to easily come back to, whether Frank lets him live or not.

Pulling into Joan's driveway, Henry sits for just a second, forehead resting against the top curve of the steering wheel. There's always been something comforting about folding up like that, making himself small and compact, but there's no time to indulge in it. Joan's neighbours aren't exactly gossipy, but leaving his car out in the open presented too many risks for comfort. 

He lets the car idle, wondering briefly if Frank will wake up while he's gone and slide into the driver's seat, take off with Henry's car. It's not exactly an unrealistic hypothetical, but Henry -- Henry's too tired to overthink it. 

Frank's going to do what Frank's going to do. Henry leaves the car running and climbs out, stepping through the flowerbed to get to the key-box hidden low on the side of the house behind the bushes. 

The key is there, just like always, and he uses it to get through the front and open the attached garage. By the time he climbs back into the car, Frank is groggily sitting up, eyes squinting to take in his surroundings, but otherwise doesn’t move. 

In the garage, which is sweltering once the door is shut again, Frank immediately starts trying to haul himself up out of the car, and Henry feels what had remained of his bubbling panic melt away. It’s harder to panic with a clear task at hand, and so he gets up and helps Frank into the house, getting him sat on a kitchen chair before rushing off to dig out the first aid supplies. It’s at least cooler in the house, Joan’s AC a low rumble in the background.

Joan was into roller derby and longboarding, and she’s expressed interest in freerunning and acrobatics. All great ways to get all kinds of minor injuries, so she keeps more supplies on hand than Henry thinks is typical. Admittedly, given his own penchant for hoarding medical supplies, it’s hard for him to gauge. 

When he returns to the kitchen, Frank’s still sitting there. That alone is a little amazing -- maybe Frank does feel his age, if only after the adrenaline rush is over. Lord knows he was never this good a patient in the past; Henry had expected to see him at the sink, trying to wash the blood off his face, or maybe hear the front door slam as Frank limped his way back out of Henry’s life.

_Why is it a relief to see him just sitting there?_

There’s no point in wondering over it, or berating himself as the idiot he clearly is. Frank gives him a baleful look as he drags the other chair over, and then, for no particular reason, relaxes, looks away. Henry sets his supplies on the chair and hesitates just a second before reaching out, expecting Frank to jerk away or grab him, snap fingers or a wrist. 

He does nothing, letting Henry turn his face toward the light to check the damage, the swelling, bruising, the crust of blood from his nose and a tear high on one cheekbone. The compliance, weirdly, makes Henry want to laugh, a brittle, unhappy sound he has to swallow because Frank would definitely react poorly to it.

After a moment, confirming that the battering Frank’s face had taken was minor, Henry lets him go, heaves a steadying breath, and kneels beside the chair to get a better look at the wound to Frank’s leg. With his jeans on, there’s only so much Henry can see, but it looks better than he’d at first feared. The wound is way too far to the outside to have nicked the main femoral artery or vein, and the hole seems to go clean through. Bloody, but probably not going to kill Frank after all.

Next, he lifts each of Frank’s hands in his own. The thrill of that is -- he tries to crush it, the familiarity, the pleasure of his slim fingers against Frank’s big, rough paw. Infuriating, how impossible it is to stop being _awed_ or _honoured_ to be the one allowed to do this. 

The scrapes and cracked open flesh of his knuckles is no surprise. Henry exhales another heavy breath and gets to his feet, finding one of the rags Joan uses for cleaning near the sink and soaking it in hot water from the faucet. This, too, is an easy, almost natural rhythm to fall into, the rhythm of moving around Frank, cleaning the blood, assessing how to stitch or bandage what needs it.

For the most part, as per the usual, Frank remains stonily silent. His gun rests on the table within easy reach, and that should be a threat -- Henry knows how quick it could be in Frank’s hands, a bludgeon even if it’s unloaded, which likely it isn’t. But there’s something sickeningly comforting about Frank having a gun nearby.

Henry doesn’t have to tell Frank his pants need to come off; he moves back to the sink to rinse and re-warm the rag and can hear Frank heave himself up and shove them down, leaving them bunched up around his boots. For no reason at all, Henry dithers at the sink until he hears the chair creak as Frank sits back down, and then there’s no choice, so he turns and moves back into Frank’s space, gets on his knees, and starts cleaning the wounds as best he can.

Once upon a time, he would have talked while he was working. Tried to draw Frank out, tried to vent the frustration of seeing him hurt, or maybe the relief of his having made it back. Henry has, after all, played nurse to Frank so many times -- in too many places, too many horrific circumstances. The smell of blood, once so omnipresent as to have been rendered meaningless, had started to turn Henry's stomach years ago; he expect this, padding the open meat of Frank's thigh with gauze, front and back, his hands becoming slick with Frank's blood as he wraps the wounds, to make him sick.

It just feels familiar. The smell of Frank was never just the smell of blood, or burning gunpowder, or sweat. It was all those things, but there was something under it, something human and warm, that had comforted Henry once. He'd forgotten that, he'd forgotten the _relief_ of Frank's pulse under his hands.

Frank doesn't speak until it's over. This is familiar too; Frank was a taciturn son of a bitch most of the time. Henry had begun to suspect that Frank simply wasn't going to say anything at all, and then, once Henry's back at the sink, scrubbing his hands clean once again, he hears Frank stand. 

It makes his whole body tense up, expectant, bracing for the worst, and then he registers the sound of Frank pulling his jeans back up. There's the barest hitch of breath as they go over the wound again, and that such a telling sound, such a _human_ sound that Henry flinches as Frank eases back down into the chair again and says, "So."

Just that, 'so', and then he waits. Henry keeps still, inviting the rest, but he gets nothing until he turns from the sink and faces Frank. Knowing Frank as he does, Henry is prepared to see that gun back in Frank's hand, aimed and ready. He's _resigned_ to it, almost looking forward to it -- he's already so tired, in an old and fitful way, of being scared.

There's no gun in Frank's hand, and his posture in the chair is almost relaxed, leaning into the back of it with his injured leg stretched lazily before him. His brows are drawn up and his mouth is twisted into some dry expression, and he asks, "You have a house?"

Something about that makes Henry more irritable again. There's a hint of surprise to the tone, and why not? Henry, getting his shit together well enough to take care of a whole house? Being an adult living on his own? Of course the idea would shock Frank, and it almost annoys Henry more that it's _not_ his house they're in. Even if he'd never be able to come back to it after this, that would have been a real sign of -- of getting out of all the old shit. 

Growing up and moving on. Putting down roots, being his own man.

"No, I _had_ an apartment," Henry snipes back. "A little studio in South Shore, not that you give a shit. This is my coworker's place."

"Girlfriend," Frank asks mildly, and Henry's not exactly sure if he's being mocked at this point, or if Frank's trying to gauge how many people might take interest if Henry vanished, or turned up dead.

And how's Henry supposed to answer, anyway? There's so many layers to the truth, all of them personal enough that he feels heat building on his face. 

_No Frank, I'm gay and I haven't had a steady boyfriend for over five years, so the only people who really give a shit about whether I'm alive or not is my landlady and my boss, and those creeps you just murdered killed the latter before you showed up, so really, I'm alone._

"I'm not dating anyone," he says tersely, turning and grabbing a glass from the cupboard, filling it from the tap. He fishes a packet of Tylenol Extra Strength out of the kit and puts both the glass and the pills on the table by Frank. Then, he starts shoving the first aid kits back together so he can put them away, saying, "Rest up. I wanna be out of here in twenty."

That'd get them on the road well before there was any chance of anyone showing up. Henry already figured chances were relatively low that there'd be anyone coming here tonight at all -- at the very best, Joan was going to be hospitalized overnight. 

But, comfortable as holing up here for the night was, Henry wanted to get to Frank's van before anyone spotted it and reported a suspicious vehicle parked by a church. Or worse, someone tried to steal it.

Twenty minutes also gave Henry plenty of time to put some space between himself and Frank, to sit on Joan's coach and draw his knees up to his chest and curl into a comforting little ball with the cat at his side. It gave him time to calm down, get his head together. 

He needed to be clear-headed, and being so close to Frank again, so suddenly after such a long time apart -- after years of disentangling himself from Frank's bullshit -- made him feel anything but.


	3. Make This Easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, the number of expected chapters has grown.

Retrieving Frank's van is a hell of a lot simpler than Henry had been willing to let himself anticipate. 

The hard part, of course, is keeping Frank from stomping off and doing every damn thing himself. Not exactly a new experience in dealing with Frank, and that has to be -- honestly, has Frank changed at all? Henry's not sure what would hit him as harder to believe, after a decade -- Frank changing, or Frank managing to stay entirely the same.

He parks the Escort, a blessedly old and unassuming vehicle, near the top level of the public parking garage a few blocks from the church. It’s the place he most often parks when he’s downtown, because it’s close enough to several businesses he frequents, so he’s figured out where the cameras are and how to park without putting them immediately in view of security. The only camera that would be able to see the car at all would only get a good look at the driver’s side and so hopefully wouldn’t get any look at Frank at all.

It's hot enough that the air feels thick and syrupy outside of the air conditioned space, and that alone almost makes Henry cave to Frank's demand that he just drive straight over to Saint James. He's not an idiot though, and he knows there's entirely too many things that can go wrong in a high traffic area, out in broad daylight with Frank. 

They don't have time to wait for sundown, and there's no alternative to Henry sticking through with this part, too. No alternative that doesn't wind up with Frank more injured, dead, or caught, at least. 

Sticking this out is a necessity, or else he wouldn't be doing it. It's an absolute necessity.

"What are you gonna do, limp three blocks in the middle of the afternoon looking like you just got hit by a truck?" Henry finally spits, the tail end of a very circuitous argument that's lasted them the entire forty minute drive from Roseland to downtown. "Just stay put and give me fifteen minutes to get your fucking van."

It shouldn't feel like a familiar miracle when Frank huffs and, without so many words, actually agrees. When Henry holds his hand out for the keys, Frank gives them over, and without prompting growls the security code he's using.

There's blood on Henry's jeans and the shoulder seams on his shirt are pulled on the left side, where he'd been shoved up against Frank, taking his weight. He looks disheveled and there's no way to actually clean himself up, so he reluctantly grabs his hoodie out of the back seat and drags it on, bulking his body shape out a bit and making him less immediately recognizable. 

Part of him wants to drag the hood up and obscure his face a little, but it's hot enough that doing so would be liable to make him look more suspicious. He's had enough practice in the past, sneaking around; a gangly white boy in dirty clothes getting in a windowless black van that had been parked outside a prominent church was enough identifiers as it was.

Leaving Frank in the car with the AC running, Henry walks just fast enough to look busy, but not hurried. Three blocks isn't a long way, but there's a lot of people on the street, walking to their stops from work or just enjoying a sunny afternoon in the city. It doesn't take him long to find the van, and he doesn't bother any of the doubling back crap he might have if he was actually worried about having been followed. He knows this area; he knows the usual habits of the people who live here.

There's a normal number of cops, normal number of people around. The church still has a banner up for some mid-week event happening tomorrow; there's no sign at all of surveillance on the van. Henry only hesitates when he gets to the driver's door _because_ it's so easy, but sometimes that's the way of it. Lingering uncertain at this point would look even weirder, so he unlocks the van, climbs in, and gets going, watching carefully for any sign of a tail peeling out of the traffic to follow.

Perhaps the most upsetting part of the whole ordeal is how well it goes. How good it feels, how unshakably _right_ to be working with (or maybe for) Frank again. There's a rising sense of something Henry's ashamed to call 'righteousness' that fills him at the idea of helping Frank get away from here, make it out safe. 

This isn't who he is, isn't what he _does_ any more, so there's no good reason for it to feel so satisfying. 

Returning to the garage, he backs into one of the spaces next to the Escort and watches Frank climb out. He can't help himself, can’t help watching. His eyes refuse to stop moving; he focuses on the way Frank grips the roof of the car for leverage, the deep tan of his flesh against dirty matte grey, and then his eyes drift inexorably along the thick, bunched muscle of Frank's arm as he hauls himself up and out. 

Frank's a big man -- he's always been big to Henry, but somehow he'd thought, maybe hoped, he would seem less impressive if they ever met again. He's not, at all -- the most telling sign of time having passed is in the thinning of Frank's hair at his temples, a steepened widow's peak. There’s grim lines set around his mouth, furrowed between his brows, but they’re not much deeper than Henry remembers them.

Despite his battered face and the way he favours his uninjured side, Frank still looks steady and strong. Henry can’t take his eyes off Frank, and while he tells himself he’s watching for signs of worsened pain, that Frank can't be trusted not to hide injuries, even in his own head it's not very convincing. 

Years ago, starting his life over, Henry had started working on a mental cleaning of house. Therapy helped him clear out the shit that couldn’t help him, and self-awareness and acceptance helped him pack up the rest, store it safe in his mental footlocker. In that process, he’d come to terms with certain facts about himself and decided, rather than repress the hell out of himself, he’d live his truth. 

Here, now, unable to get his eyes to stop focusing on how goddamn huge Frank’s biceps are, it feels a lot less like he’s been living his truth and more like he’s had himself on hold, waiting.

Frank turns away after getting fully to his feet and tosses the keys for the Escort in the driver's seat before slamming the door shut and crossing over to the van in a gait that's somewhere between a limp and a march. Henry gauges that the wound to his leg, while almost certainly not life threatening at this point, must be very painful; this is reinforced by the way Frank's face tightens as he climbs into the passenger seat of the van. 

Or maybe he's just grimacing at the unholy shriek of ungreased, ill-used metal that echoes through the parking structure both times he moves the van's door. It's impossible to actually say, because it's not like Frank's going to actually _tell_ Henry. That's why Henry has to watch him, keep an eye out for the little telling signs Frank hopes everyone else will miss.

Harder to do when Henry's also watching the road and trying to keep an eye out for any sign of being followed. 

At first, the silence is sort of comfortable. Frank starts methodically stowing the weapons he's had strapped to his person, including the gun he'd kept in his hand most of the time Henry's been with him. In the end, the guns -- every single one of them that Henry's noticed, at least -- are stashed within easy reach of Frank's seat, but none of them are immediately visible. The only weapon Henry can see left on Frank within five minutes of leaving the parking structure is a heavy looking combat knife stuck in his boot.

Neither of them talk, and Henry can feel Frank assessing -- his driving, their speed, the direction they're traveling, which freeway they're on, the crowds and the traffic; Frank's like the goddamn Terminator half the time, silently taking in every shred of detail in his surroundings and calculating the fastest trajectory to his next target. Twenty minutes after hitting I-94, Henry is tempted to try turning the radio on (god knows if it even works, or what heinous Dad Rock station Frank would have it tuned to), and then Frank says, "We should have torched the car."

It shouldn't set Henry off laughing -- it _shouldn't,_ he should know better, at the very least, but it's one of those moments when he's certain if he doesn't laugh he'll have to do something stupider, so he just goes with it.

"I will bet you actual money that my car is already gone," Henry says, pushing as much false cheer into the words as he can because there's no point in being upset about it. What does a car matter when he didn't get killed this afternoon? When the whole rest of his life is being turned inside out and he might be dead by sundown? 

He actually finds himself clutching the steering wheel, tight enough to make his fingers ache, so he doesn't make some gesture Frank interprets as a threat. He _wants_ Frank to be comfortable with him here, which is fucked up, given that _he's_ not comfortable here, and since there's evidently guns hidden in every nook and cranny, Henry doesn't want to do anything that suggests he's _reaching_ for something. 

"Why else leave the keys," he says after a few moments of silence. "Best case scenario, someone who needed a car just got a good break. More likely, it's in a chop shop, or some kid's going drag racing in it. It's not likely to grab a lot of attention in any case."

"My blood's all over the passenger seat. Just the passenger side," Frank presses, though Henry's pretty sure he's just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point. "Cops find your car, that proves I was your passenger. Not a far leap for them to decide you were volunteering to help me."

Which almost makes it sound like Frank is worried about what will happen to Henry at the end of this. A hilarious thought, given that Frank still hasn't made a single mention of the fact that they have any history together -- just picked back up like it's been ten days, rather than years. Even if that's not a fair way to look at it -- and it's not, a tiny voice insists in Henry's head; it's not, Henry hasn't tried to bring any of their history up either -- it still rankles in a nasty way, the idea of Frank caring. 

The idea of Frank being concerned about someone else's tomorrow is too much to be asked to swallow. Henry feels his emotions try to pull in about seven distinctly different directions at once, and what comes out of his mouth is a viciously curt, "As if you actually give a fuck."

Immediately he regrets saying it, if only because Henry fully expects Frank to have something to say about it. About his _tone,_ if nothing else. Frank hadn't ever shown much patience for being questioned before, whether Henry was asking after motives or methods. 

Shockingly, in defiance of expectation, he just makes a low, inscrutable sound, faces forward in his seat, and doesn't say another goddamn word.

Neither of them do, settling into a long, chilly silence. Henry ignores the tolls and moderates his speed, matching the flow of traffic. The last thing Henry wants is to draw attention to them, but he's always been a good driver, and despite all the extra weight from the ordinance it carries, the van handles very well. 

At some point, the silence between them thaws to something more casual -- or at least, it does for Henry. He imagines there’s little difference between an icy silence and a companionably warm one for Frank. Not that Henry would go so far as to call this _warm,_ but he’s at least stopped feeling so… so _whatever_ about this situation. It’s done, he made his choice; he made the only choice he could have.

By the time they cross into Wisconsin, far enough north of anything like Henry would qualify as being an actual ‘city’, the sun is finally setting in earnest. The dash clock claims it’s a quarter to nine, but Henry doesn’t need to check his phone to know Frank’s never switched it from Eastern time. Possibly doesn’t know how, possibly doesn’t care; Frank always had an uncanny intuitive sense for time before, and seemed to operate on his own internal clock more than by anything else. 

In any case, it’s well enough into the evening that it feels stupid to hit the point where Henry is dully waiting to wake up. Whatever adrenaline had been pushing him along since the attack at the outreach center, it’s dried up, and there’s an exhausting, dreamy sort of cotton feeling building around Henry’s brain.

He recognizes it. Been years since he felt it, but he’s felt it before, most prominently after watching Daken slaughter Frank. He’d been running on fumes by that point then, too, and so in the immediate aftermath, everything had felt mechanical. He hadn’t been tired then, either, just numb.

Waiting for the wake-up call. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Driving Frank’s van, Frank injured and _passive_ in the seat beside him, ten years after Frank told him to get the fuck out of his life. No gun in Frank’s hands, no injury to Henry but for the ache in his fingers from clutching things too hard. 

The sun won’t truly be down for a few hours yet, though it’s well into the west now. Summer nights, driving into Wisconsin farmland, there’s bound to be light enough to see by until ten at least. 

Unable to really help it, Henry glances at Frank, his arms folded in front of him. The forearm of the nearer arm is home to a number of raw-looking welts and scratches, left by Henry’s panicking fingers. He’d rinsed those cuts out with all the rest, but the sight of them still makes Henry feel weirdly ashamed -- the ruse had been his idea, and he’d clawed Frank up pretty good anyway. 

“We should probably change the dressing on your leg,” He says softly. No need to raise his voice when the only sound between them has been the road under the tires. Henry still half expects Frank not to hear him, but Frank gives him a look and then, after a second of some inscrutable staring, nods. Henry focuses back on the road. “You got a kit in the back?”

“Yeah,” Frank says, just as soft as Henry. Henry waits for something, some follow up, but there is nothing. 

There’s nothing out this way but farm land. Milwaukee is behind them; so is I-94. Henry hadn’t wanted to head toward more people, he wanted to get _away_ from people. Frank hadn’t questioned Henry’s choices, hadn’t so much as blinked when Henry eased them out of the evening traffic and onto a smaller northbound highway. 

Now though, Henry’s waiting for instruction. Realizing that is another slap to the years of progress he’s made in getting away from this shit, sharp and stinging. He’s even sitting a little straighter in his seat, waiting for Frank to tell him where to go, what to do. 

_That’s_ the other shoe dropping here, he thinks dully. Ten years of progress? Ten years of putting old instinct on pause, and all he needed to fall back into every old habit was Frank silent beside him. Some idiot kid part of him still rooted so deep in his brain that he instinctively falls back into all his learned ‘good’ habits for Frank, ready to listen, ready to help.

And Frank’s just sitting there. Frank likely doesn’t even give a shit that Henry’s waiting for his word; maybe Frank expects him to just pull over any old where, or maybe he’s waiting for a good option to avail itself. It’s impossible to say because Frank is _still_ impossible to read, and he doesn’t give anything away without making you claw it out of him.

Maybe that’s the habit he’s been trying all this time to break, really. Trying to figure out what Frank’s thinking. What Frank _expected,_ what Frank _wanted._

There’s no way for Henry to know, because Frank doesn’t want him to know. And if he’s not going to tell Henry what he wants, it’s not Henry’s job to figure it out. All he can do is keep doing the next best thing. 

He puts the signal on and merges into the exit lane at the next sign.


	4. The Persistent Beat

The shadows are getting longer, laying deeper on the pavement as they drive through the little spit in the road town the off ramp had led to. There's not much to it but a couple gas stations and a single traffic light, multiple dirt roads (and a couple paved, in fairness to modernity) trailing off into the fields, just as likely private drives for the farms out that way as actual labeled roads.

By the time Henry finds a likely place to park, in the lee side of the older of the two gas stations, he's flooded with a grim sort of exhaustion. It's much too early to be as tired as he finds himself, but it's due. This is what comes after that wired sense of numbness, a bone deep fatigue that would keep him in bed for days if he let it. 

No guarantee it would be _good_ sleep, but it would be sleep. Henry doesn't have nightmares often -- he thinks his brain gave up on trying to scare him after Frank returned from the dead, huge and full of the same rage he'd burned with in life. Still, there are dreams that, if not terrifying in the way zombie-Frank with a shotgun standing over his bed had been scary, still managed to be deeply unsettling in a basic and fundamental way.

He doesn't have time for it. He's tired, but it will have to wait, and it can. He knows well enough that he can make it much longer on much less rest than he's had. The last few years working at the outreach clinic, grad school, that had taught him well enough that he could run on empty for a few days when it came down to it. After all, he'd had plenty of practice serving as Frank's on-call tech guy and nurse. Maybe after he finishes changing the bandages on Frank's leg, he'll run into the gas station and get himself a coffee.

As the van settles to a stop, Frank unbuckles and lets the strap snap over his shoulder, reaching into the space under the glove box and pulling a handgun out. Henry feels like he should be surprised by that ugly little magic trick, if only because he'd seen no sign of the hidden weapon until it was in Frank's hand, but it's hard to be shocked by Frank deciding he needs a gun in his hand.

Despite the growing shadows, it's still hot outside the van, August heat livid in the air, dry and baking out of the asphalt. Henry can almost immediately feel sweat starting to prickle at the back of his neck as they walk around the vehicle and meet at the back. He wonders if Frank expected him to bolt, or if Frank just expects his compliance by this point. 

He wonders if it matters either way to Frank. 

Frank squints into the distance, evidently approving of the remoteness of the area Henry had chosen, the lack of witnesses, maybe. Then he yanks open one of the tailgate doors and holds it, looking at Henry expectantly. As a gesture, it might feel more considerate if Frank's other hand weren't clutching a gun. 

Inside the van, it's a little cooler -- not as cool as the cabin had been, but cooler than the parking lot, and Frank hauls himself in after Henry quickly enough, shutting the door behind him. It feels a little backwards to be grateful for being shut up in the back of a windowless van with an armed vigilante, but really, Henry would be more shocked at this point if Frank actually shot him.

He can see immediately, once Frank hits the lights, that the bandages are soaked through, and so is the denim. Frank doesn't say a word, but the gun is set aside and that's -- well Henry's not sure what to think about that, looking away as Frank gets his boots and then his pants off, moving with the stilted grace of a man trying to show none of the pain he's in. 

Plenty of times, Henry has seen Frank take his clothes off with a gun in hand. Frank can do just about anything with a gun in one hand that he could do with both hands free. Why grab the gun just to put it down immediately?

Again, there's no point in trying to figure it out. No point trying to muddle out what's going through Frank's head. Better to busy himself finding and digging out the army surplus medical backpack Frank's got stashed in the back corner, just above the piles of trash he's evidently found pointless to clean up. A lot of porn, and a lot of men's health magazines, which Frank would likely deny being the same thing.

One more thing Frank never spoke about, expected no one to notice or figure out. Henry had noticed, he’d just never seen any point in mentioning it. 

When Frank eases himself down in the computer chair bolted in place at the console setup he's got mounted to one wall, Henry moves to his side again, heavy backpack slung on one arm.

It feels very important to keep this as clinical as possible. Henry isn't sure he could ever make it _professional,_ but clinical he can do. He'd gotten emergency first aid certification so someone in the office could provide assistance if someone showed up injured, which happened more than he liked to think about, but this… Frank is not a stranger he's helping. 

Frank is not a battered, stunned or weeping stranger. When Henry finishes changing the bandages, Frank isn't going to thank him and vanish from Henry's attention. Even if he did leave after this, Henry wouldn't be able to push him immediately from his mind, focus on work or the next injured body. 

Frank was Frank, and however Henry tried to remove him from his thoughts, he was always near at hand. 

Unpacking the gauze, letting the soiled bandages fall with a grimace of distaste, Henry can see that the wound is still seeping. It looks raw and wet, and however manfully silent Frank is as Henry gently prods at the inflamed edges, it looks painful.

Frank doesn't flinch when Henry starts cleaning the area, washing out the dried and congealed blood and mopping up the fresh well of it, but the muscles of his thighs tense under Henry's hands, and when Henry rests his palm on Frank's knee, just for a moment, Frank's breath -- pauses. Not a hitch, really, it's just held until Henry pulls his hand away.

It's an odd experience, familiar and strange; an old routine rife with familiarity that feels unearned despite everything Henry had once done to gain it. It doesn't feel like the old days, but more as if this never stopped, like it's happened often enough that Henry still knows every twitch and pause as the tell that it is, how to compensate to make this more bearable for a man who refused to show it hurt at all in the first place.

With both sides of the wound cleaned up and repacked and Frank's leg once more swathed in gauze, Henry's fingers feel stiff, like Frank's blood is embedded in every crease and crevice of his skin, even as he wipes his hands on a square of cut up towel. That's not new either, he always came away feeling like Frank had soaked into his skin, even when his hands looked clean.

They're definitely not clean this time, but he supposes they're been dirtier. He's done nastier jobs in the name of looking after Frank's well-being, too. Cleaning Frank's bedpans while he was both dead and unconscious comes to mind, and Henry can't help the faint, exhausted laugh that leaves him, easing back off his knees to sit properly on the floor and shaking his head.

Frank's watching him, when he looks, eternally stern and impossible to read. Then, Henry blinks and Frank's smiling.

Not the mean, someone's-about-to-get-hurt one, either; he's got that crooked, muted look that always makes him seem just a little softer, a hint of a personable man he's worked very hard to bury. When Frank smiles like that, there's always an air of shock to it, like he's caught off guard by his own amusement. 

Seeing that look on his face now makes Henry's flighty bubble of helpless amusement even worse, and he has to close his eyes and bite back more laughter, knowing exactly how bad it would sound. He feels like he's right on the edge of screaming suddenly, the wildness of the day crowding in at odd angles, and if he lets any of that out, it's going to kill him.

"You okay," Frank asks after a moment, somewhere between careful indifference and actual concern. Henry's not sure he's ever heard Frank be wholly, genuinely concerned for anyone before, so he supposes he should take it. Take it, and be grateful he rates high enough for Frank to bother manufacturing something like an emotion for him.

"Not really," He chirps brightly, aiming for a jokey sort of cheer and hitting closer to bitingly manic. Frank doesn't really do jokes, but he does self-pity even less, and complaining would just open himself up to some kind of patronizing mockery. Henry doesn't think he'd be able to tolerate that.

When he opens his eyes again, Frank's smile is gone, his eyes dark and assessing on Henry. Henry feels sharply embarrassed for the crack in his facade of acceptance, hating that he couldn't hold his shit together and have a freak out on his own, alone, whenever he and Frank part ways. Maybe after he's dead.

Looking away, he frowns, swallowing around a sudden tightness in his throat. "I'm fine, I'll be... it's just. Y'know, between me watching my boss get murdered and my assistant assaulted, helping you get your ass outta that mess, and totally torching my whole life in Chicago, 'okay' sorta misses the mark for me right now."

It feels ridiculous, sitting on the floor of the back of Frank's van, surrounded by Frank's cast off dirty clothes and trash, the skin of his hands drawn tight with traces of Frank's blood, to be _ashamed_ over admitting that this has been a rough day. To hear that old whip-cracking voice in the back of his head telling him to shut up, quit complaining. Like the last twelve hours haven't been the most stressful he's endured in over a decade, as if most people wouldn't be shaken of entirely checked out by this point.

As if he needs to hold himself to Frank's standard of unshakable, as if it's somehow a disservice to _Frank_ that he should let today's events touch him. 

His whole body tenses up, every bit of self control employed to keep himself from actually jumping, when Frank leans in and squeezes his shoulder. It's a far gentler touch than he expects from Frank, the heat of that big hand sinking though his shirt leaving more of an impression than the actual pressure. 

Maybe Frank feels that tension, or maybe he's still just that awkward in regards to touching people outside of fits of explosive violence, but he almost immediately sits back, dropping his hand to his side. 

"I think you should get some sleep," he says, and Henry... has no idea what to do with that. Like Frank grabbing the gun out of the front seat and carrying it back here only to immediately set it aside once behind a closed door, Henry can't parse the meaning of the gesture. 

He feels like he has to argue it, though. Defensive, in spite of or _because_ of Frank's mild tone. After all, Frank's only ever mild with Henry when it's meant to be a different kind of jab, implying he's too soft to handle anything else. "No, I'm fine, really, I can drive, it's all good," he says, "Your leg's all fucked up, don't--"

"That wasn't something to argue about," Frank says, crisp and leaving no room to fight about anything. 

After everything else, it feels unfair. Like putting in all the effort of studying only to fail the test on a technicality. He's done all the work, followed every rule, but it's not enough. "Frank, I'm fine," he tries, putting more bite into the words, rising back onto his knees, halfway to his feet before Frank moves. 

He's so fast, always so goddamn fast when it comes down to it, to him getting a hand on a gun. Henry flinches on reflex, Frank's presence too big for him not to anticipate pain with that quick and sudden of a movement, and then Frank's got his gun in his hand again. 

"Do I need to put a fucking gun to your head to get you to listen to me now," he asks, his eyes icy on Henry as he stares him down. He's not pointing the gun -- but he could. It's in his hand now, and it could be on Henry so much faster than Henry could get out of the line of fire, and that should be terrifying. That flat snarl of his voice, relentless and refusing compromise, should be terrifying. All of this, every detail, should be _terrifying._

Henry's heart's beating harder than it has all night, but it's not fear rushing through him. He wants to insist that it's the tone of Frank's voice, that low growl almost a bedroom purr, and maybe it is. Surely it's not the threat of Frank --

"Jesus Christ," he hears himself say, lowering back to sit flat. “I just didn’t want --”

"You're about to hit a wall,” Frank growls, and his hand is so tight on the grip of that gun, so sure. Henry swallows convulsively, dragging his gaze off Frank’s hand and that gun. “You’re going to crash, and it would be better if you didn't do it behind the wheel."

“Your leg’s gonna bleed like hell, working the pedals,” Henry warns -- but he’s not arguing. Partially because Frank’s right; if he hasn’t already hit the wall of exhaustion, he’s going to soon. Mostly he’s not arguing because he doesn’t want to test his reaction to Frank actually pointing that thing at him. “You’re gonna have to wake me up in a few to change this again.”

Shoving his way to his feet, Frank nudges Henry as he limps past, just the knuckles of his hand against Henry’s shoulder, almost incidental enough to have been an accident. Henry just happens to know Frank’s well enough to understand that it’s not, but he’s still not entirely sure what it’s supposed to mean, or why it makes something fitful and hot squirm in his stomach.

“Take the cot, get some sleep. I’ll try to avoid any dirt roads.” Frank’s equivalent of a joke, and then he limps his way heavily back out, into the gathering dusk. Left alone on the floor, Henry has very little choice but to put the medical supplies back in their bag, turn off the lights, and try to make himself comfortable as the van rumbles back to life and rocks into motion. 

Bolted against the wall opposite Frank’s computer bay, the bunk isn’t totally uncomfortable. If such a thing as ‘industrially comfortable’ exists, that would describe it pretty well. Rigid, something steady under him as the van rumbles against the road. Soft enough that his body starts to relax, too firm to be indulgent. Very ‘Frank’ as far as a bed goes, Henry supposes -- just comfortable enough to serve its purpose.

He lays there and tries to think about the bunk and not the way his heart is still thudding in his chest at the threat of the gun, blood pressure up for all the wrong reasons. 

Years ago, he’d dated a guy with a gun kink. Or, what _he_ called a gun kink. Ben had an impressive collection of handguns and a few shotguns, all real, but the ones he brought to bed were all models. The kind that never had been and never would be fireable. For safety, Ben had said, and Henry had agreed. 

They’d been very safe.

He’d hated them. The feel of them against his skin, their lack of weight, the hollowness of the threats made with them. He told himself he hated the reminder, the… the potential of escalation, perhaps, the taking of something that had been a very present danger in his past turned into a sex toy. Hated them for the _right_ reasons.

He refuses to think about Frank, holding him in that alley. The weight of a real, loaded gun against his face. It had scared him, he’d felt sick -- he’d _hurt_ Frank, he was so scared.

Memory could do weird things though, he knows. 

Which is why he’s not going to think about it. Not the alley, not Frank, not the _threat_ of a threat. 

Curling up on his side and closing his eyes, Henry resolves not to think about anything at all. Frank was right after all; he was tired. He’d been tired for hours.

Stewing in a strange sense of dull unfulfillment, he lets sleep take him. There are no nightmares, not as such, but that doesn't make it restful. 

It rarely does.


	5. Gone the Distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one.

Scent has always had a particularly powerful emotional correlation for Henry, so when he wakes up groggy, disoriented, and vaguely aroused, he's at least aware enough to understand that it's the smell of the still mattress pad beneath him that's causing the last. It's not even a particularly good smell, except for all the ways it is; it smells like sweat and unwashed clothes and old sex.

Even as his brain is filtering into awareness of where he is and everything that happened yesterday as actual facts that _actually happened,_ some simpler, animal part of him correlates that smell with _Frank_ and _Frank_ with a vaguely forbidden but ultimately unavoidable arousal. He ends up rolling onto his stomach, face pressed into the mattress with a little hum of approval, before it ever registers with him that the van's not moving.

The van should definitely be moving.

Maybe, he thinks uneasily, Frank just got tired. It's an odd thought in that Frank rarely admitted to exhaustion and generally would rather run himself ragged before admitting he needed sleep. The van is sitting at a slight tilt, so it's possible that they'd gone off the road, but the stop had been gentle enough that Henry almost slept through it. Given that they're not turned over in a ditch or dead, though, and that Henry had woken entirely on his own, not from being thrown out of the bed mid-crash, it seemed unlikely that Frank had passed out.

No muffled wailing of sirens, so they're probably not pulled over by cops, either.

Rolling onto his back with a groan, Henry forces himself to wake up. His head feels slow and heavy and his dick's still very interested in the thick aroma of _Frank_ that's built up in the whole space, but especially this corner with the bed, and there's no time to deal with any of that. 

Sitting up, swinging his legs off the side of the bunk, he fumbles for the shirt he vaguely remembers peeling off to use as a makeshift pillow at some point in the night, exhaling a heavy breath and trying to get himself ready for facing Frank. He's sore from carrying all the tension he's been holding through the entire back half of yesterday, and he's carefully choosing what parts of _that_ whole mess he can let himself think about when something heavy slams against the outside of the van, right beside the bunk.

Henry startles with an embarrassing yelp -- barely muffled purely by habit -- and jumps, on his feet even as he's dragging on his shirt, scrambling for the door. Faintly, muffled, he can hear Frank cussing, a softer thunk, higher up, like a fist on metal. He's absently glad that he hadn't bothered kicking his shoes off before crashing last night, jumping from the back into the dirt they’re parked in and rushing around the side of the van.

Even if the rising sun didn't immediately give away the length of time that's passed since Henry fell asleep to the road sounds of the van speeding over old asphalt, the sight of Frank would. For one thing, he's pale and tense, every line of his posture screaming his discomfort for anyone observant enough to see; for another, he's still in his underwear and the dressing Henry had changed right before sleeping is _soaked._

Judging by the look of the skin around the bandaging, it's been soaked through for a while, clearly in need of changing. The sun, still low in the east, paints the world in cool blue tones -- it's still very early, maybe five AM, but Frank should have woken Henry at least once, probably twice in that time to change the dressing. Even if he wasn't going to trade back off driving, even if he'd woken Henry for help changing the bandages and then told him to go back to sleep, it still should have been done. 

Frank's caught himself against the side of the van, back to Henry. That doesn't mean he's unaware that Henry's there; Henry knows damn well Frank would have heard the tailgate door open and his feet hitting the ground. It's a good sign that he doesn't turn to shout, or maybe it's just a sign that he's out of it enough.

Part of Henry is... relieved at the idea of Frank acclimated again to his presence, or better, _still_ acclimated to it, but mostly he's just angry. 

It's so goddamn stupid, Frank standing in the dirt at the side of the road, barefoot in his underwear, leg a mess, very clearly trying to negotiate how to get down on his knees because, as it become obvious as Henry approaches Frank's back, the front passenger-side tire has blown. 

"I can do that," Henry says, crisp and business-like because otherwise he's liable to start yelling, which wouldn't do either of them any good. 

At least he's not worried about morning wood anymore. 

The look Frank gives him is pissed-off enough to give him pause, resigned enough to keep him from scurrying back into the van. Henry stops where he’s standing and folds his arms over his chest -- as hot as it had been when they’d stopped last night, the early dawn is chilly, dew thick on the stalks of corn that fill the field they’re pulled up alongside. It’s a strange, almost surreal feeling, seeing Frank in this setting, this hour, feeling this -- this agitation, this disappointed anger at him, not for anything but his lack of self care.

Frank was never good at taking care of himself, but Henry being with him was supposed to _help_ that, and it feels very much as though somehow he’s made it worse. 

Maybe that’s flattering himself too much. Maybe Frank would have kept pushing himself just this way if he’d been alone; maybe with Henry asleep in the back, Frank had forgotten he was there entirely. 

“I got it under control,” says the man with blood running down his leg, who’s been driving barefoot and pantless all night and is only still standing by virtue of leaning into the van. Then, for further insult, he shrugs a shoulder and says, “You can hold the flashlight if you need to feel helpful.”

“You need to go sit down, Frank,” Henry says, that same flat crispness cutting his words into flat, precise syllables. “In the back.” 

Frank’s lip curls, not a smile but some mean warning thing, meant to chase Henry off before he even gets going. Frank’s not got a gun on him this time -- there’s nowhere on him Henry wouldn’t be able to see. No gun doesn’t mean he’s not a threat, and Henry doesn’t delude himself of that -- even injured, injured far worse than he currently is, Frank could probably kill Henry before Henry could even think of a plausible defense. 

Maybe that’s _part_ of why the look of him gets Henry so pissed off all over again. Every time he tries to calm himself a little, Frank’s tough guy shit gets him right back into it, hackles up. 

Breathing a sharp breath, he tries to keep himself moderate. One of them needs to be reasonable, and it’s always going to be him. Frank’s not the insane person the newspapers want to make him out to be, but he’ll always be happy to do his best impression. Always has to fight tooth and nail to try to push that hardass, tough lone-man-against-the-world image. Henry knows him well enough to know that. 

“I can do the tire, then I’ll take care of your leg,” he says. “You gotta get your weight off it now, though.”

“Kid,” Frank growls, and Henry’s sure he’s got a whole nasty, macho threat-cum-reiteration of just how well he’s ‘got this’, but there’s -- something. Something about Frank calling him _kid_ that way, that low snarl, a clear dismissal. He hasn’t called Henry by his name once -- not one single time since they’ve been alone together, but he’ll call him ‘kid’ in lieu of it. 

It burns something in Henry, heat flushing along the back of his neck and his face. Maybe a kid is all Frank sees still -- it’s certainly all Henry ever was before when Frank didn’t need a good soldier to show up and do the work. Back then, Henry had been used to being summarily dismissed, set aside, deemed at a glance to be useless to whatever task was at hand, and the high of Frank so often having work he _did_ need Henry for had balanced that.

Back then, he’d been all too willing to silence the parts of himself Frank told him to silence, to shut up and duck his head and do whatever it was Frank said he needed, because it was better to be needed for something than entirely useless. Better to berate himself as a child for testing Frank’s patience or inviting his passive aggressive half apologies that were really more excuses to rub Henry’s age and want for approval in his face, than to have Frank dismiss him entirely again.

He’s not a kid now. He’s not someone Frank can dismiss or shove away -- or if he is, he’s unwilling to be the person who allows it without a fight. If Frank wants to get rid of him, he’s going to have to do a lot better than that.

All of that burns through him in the span of a single syllable snarling its way out of Frank’s mouth, and Henry cuts him off, sharp, before he can finish the thought.

“No,” he says, half shouting as he steps toward Frank, toward the simmering violence and potential danger of him. “I am not a fucking child for you to boss around anymore, and you are _not_ in charge of me. Go sit the fuck down and let me fix this, and then I’ll fix your leg. You wanna keep playing macho after that, fine, I sure can't stop you. But enough of this bullshit. Go _sit_ the _fuck down_.”

The way Frank stares at him is -- new. A sort of surprise Henry’s not sure he’s ever seen on Frank’s face, and a keen sort of interest he’s seen him take in regards to what he sees as a certain kind of challenge. A weapon with heavy recoil or a grenade with a chance of blowing in his hand. 

It shouldn’t be a look that earns a return of that particular heat and tension in his lower gut, but it is, and it does. Henry still half expects Frank to laugh that dry, mocking little huff and ask if he’s done, if he’s finished with his little fit -- that’s still half how it feels, too, like he’s being childish by telling Frank he’s _not_ a child. 

But maybe he’s not, maybe there’s something to that self-advocacy thing his therapist was always pushing, because after a breathless pause, Frank just _nods,_ short and sharp, and turns, leaning against the van as he limps for the tailgate. Standing there, a little stunned in the wake of his own outburst and Frank’s willing compliance, Henry listens to the creak of the shocks as Frank hauls himself up into the van.

Giving himself a moment, just a short handful of seconds, Henry closes his eyes and mindfully forces his shoulders to relax, his hands to unclench. In the space of a few deep breaths, his heart slows a little and the dizzying sense of risk mixed with inappropriate arousal abates. His face feels hot, something like shame mixed into the whole emotional cocktail -- not for putting his foot down, but for the distinct pleasure that came from Frank obeying him. The thrill of his focus on Henry, his acquiescence.

He acknowledges these things, mindful, accepts them as honest, and then pushes them aside so he can focus on the task at hand. 

Despite all the modifications and massive security and weapons upgrades Frank's had made to the van, its spare tire is still stowed where Henry knows he'd find it on most vans of its build. The trashed out mess of Frank's floor doesn't hide the brutal military logic of Frank's storage system, either, so Henry can quickly find all the tools he needs, watched silently by Frank as he moves around in the early damn light. 

Henry very carefully does not get caught up in the way Frank's watching him, the way he's sprawled himself on the bunk, back against the far wall and injured leg sprawled in front of him. At least he's keeping the damn thing elevated.

If Henry were in charge -- if he thought Frank would tolerate it, rather than push him again and ice him out at the first sign of concern, go right back to being a massive idiot prick about it -- Henry would tend to his leg first. If he were in charge, had any kind of real say in the matter, he'd make Frank lay down properly and get some rest.

He's not in charge, though, and he knows Frank too well to push it; he ignores Frank and frees the spare tire, hauling it and the jack and a small box of relevant tools out to the front of the vehicle and sets about the job as quickly and efficiently as possible. The least he can do is get it done quickly so he can take care of the matter he considers actually important.

What should be a twenty-minute task at maximum ends up taking well over twice that time, only because those upgrades of Frank's complicate even as simple a job as changing a flat. Henry's good with mechanical work though, and he enjoys it, the way the light of the rising sun slowly warms and the dew starts to burn away as he works. Not a single car passes the entire time, and Henry wonders idly where they might be, other than corn-country.

Dawn, true and golden, is fully established by the time he's securing the damaged tire to the space where the spare had been. In the van, leaning heavier against that curved wall at his back, Frank's dozing, and the sight of him like that does something odd and complicated to Henry's chest.

Many times in the past, he's been allowed to watch Frank sleep, see him injured or exhausted enough that he couldn't avoid it however much he wanted to man through it and press on with his Mission. Henry has seen Frank -- _god,_ he's seen too much of Frank's pain, seen him fall, seen him die. 

Seeing him sleep isn't new, but... after a confrontation, after a disagreement, seeing Frank lower his guard and let himself rest where he knows Henry will see him feels... different, bigger than he's usually allowed. It's like Frank leaving him some abstract, silent invitation, trusting him to recognize it and take it if he wants it.

Henry doesn't want to find that flattering, but he can't seem to help it.

Moving quietly around the van, Henry carefully stows all Frank's tools where he'd found them and then gathers up everything he'll need to tend to Frank. He washes his hands twice with foaming disinfectant and digs out a few squares of terrycloth -- rags that he thinks Frank has cut from a larger towel, because Frank impulsively steals hotel towels so he might as well find good use for them. 

When his hands are free of grime, he carries everything over to the bunk, setting his supplies on the floor. Frank wakes immediately, all at once, at the barest brush of Henry's fingers to his wrist. If Henry didn't know better, he's think Frank hadn't been asleep at all, only sitting there waiting.

They don't talk. Henry uses surgical scissors from the kit to cut away the old bandaging, and Frank silently moves to a position that makes the task easier on them both. In terms of sitting still and letting Henry work, Frank's always been a great patient. 

It's all the other ways, all the important self-care ways, where Frank fails as a patient.

However bad Henry had been afraid things would look laid bare, the situation isn't actually that grotesque. He dumps bottled water on one of the terry rags and uses that to clean the general area before taking the disinfectant to it, but there's no new swelling, no discolored seepage, no angry lines of infection carving their way towards Frank's heart. He's lost a lot of blood, and he's exhausted, but it could be a lot worse.

Wrapping it all up once again, Henry looks up to meet Frank's eye, unsure what he expects -- or wants -- to see. His hand is pressed over the swathed area, feeling the way everything shivers under his palm, muscles trying to tense up, stuttering in the face of the pain that kind of minute movement causes the wound. 

Frank just raises an eyebrow. Henry _knows_ his leg has to be killing him -- there's a hole blasted through it with an exit wound big enough Henry could probably work his forefinger in to the knuckle, easily, and Frank's had two Tylenol since it happened. Still, his face shows none of the pain that _has_ to be there, eyes bright with something Henry’s not sure how to read.

Dropping his hand, Henry starts putting the supplies back into their proper place in the backpack, if only for the excuse to look somewhere other than at Frank. “The tire’s done. You should put pants on this time. Before we get moving again. Which I honestly can’t believe I have to say.”

Feels idiotic to say -- feels like directly pointing out, highlighted and underlined, that Henry was not just aware of Frank’s state of undress, but distracted by it. There’s a lot of things that were better not mentioned, better left unsaid, if only for the sake of plausible deniability later.

One of Frank’s hands catches him by the wrist as he’s turning away with the medical bag, holding him still. It feels very strange, to be standing over Frank, the moment itself intensely surreal. His hand on Henry’s wrist is hot and dry, his grip loose enough to allow Henry to pull away if he wants. 

“I appreciate what you’ve been doing here,” Frank says, flat but intense with something Henry’s not sure how he’s meant -- how he’s _allowed_ \-- to interpret. “You know that, right?”

Henry feels for a moment like he can’t breathe. All he can do is nod -- a lie in a way, because while he assumes Frank understands the _necessity_ of Henry changing the bandages, but he’d hesitate before explicitly acknowledging that Frank _appreciates_ anything.

He’d expect Frank to release his wrist, but he doesn’t -- he just keeps that steady, loose grip, eyes intense on Henry. “I didn’t figure you’d be comfortable with me fuckin’ around back here after what I said last night.”

It feels a little like Henry’s brain has short circuited. They’re too close together, the interior of the van starting to warm as the sun climbs higher, the hand on Henry’s wrist too intense for the ease of that grip. Even with the medicinal, sterile addition of the antiseptic wash, the whole corner by the bunk reeks of Frank, old and heady and --

This is not a dream. Henry at no point seriously thinks it is, or that there are any positive outcomes of the risk he’s taking, but at that moment, he’s helpless to do anything else. He’d never be here again, and if the moment passes, it will never come back. Frank doesn’t often repeat himself.

When he leans in, Frank lets go of his wrist, palm sliding dryly along the side of Henry’s arm, like he knows Henry needs the extra stability. Henry’s pretty sure if either of them spoke at that moment, he’d be unable to hear it, his heart beating so loud in his ears. He kisses Frank’s cheek, just to the left of his mouth.

He expects to be pushed away, maybe struck. Yelled at, or firmly told to stop. Dismissed. 

He does not expect Frank’s hand to close on his bicep, keeping him bent at a bad angle, scant inches from Frank’s face. Doesn’t expect Frank’s eyes to flick over his face, lingering on his lips a moment before looking him in the eye, checking for -- permission, Henry thinks, or perhaps some degree of certainty.

And then Frank pulls him in, gentle but inescapable, and kisses him, and it’s -- it’s like flipping on a light in a dim room. It’s like understanding. 

Henry’s kissed a lot of men, and he’s fantasized about kissing Frank plenty of times, a few times while kissing those men. It’s a part of himself he accepted and left alone because there was no real way to address it, and trying to kill it felt dishonest. However much he’s thought about it, however many other times he’s done similar with others, nothing prepares him for the reality of being drawn in this way, Frank’s thin lips parting against his own, the low, considering noise Frank makes before sucking Henry’s tongue into his mouth.

It’s a lot. It’s more than he knows what to do with, and Frank is so much more patient than Henry would have anticipated. He doesn’t push or drag at Henry, and when Henry carefully climbs onto the bunk, kneeling beside Frank rather than getting in his lap because he doesn’t want to hurt Frank, Frank just shifts his weight and makes space, turning his face up when Henry curls both hands against his jaw, and carries on kissing him, like that pause was the most natural in the world.

Frank’s hand moves from Henry’s arm to the back of his neck, his other hand coming to rest carefully on Henry’s side. The touch shocks a little gasp out of Henry, half a startle, and he swears Frank starts to apologize before Henry kisses the words out his mouth. 

Parked just off the road, both of them tired, brought together again by violent happenstance, this feels mis-timed, a forbidden thing Henry is stealing in a moment that shouldn’t exist. It’s exhilarating, perfect, and the easy way Frank keeps kissing him back is enough encouragement to keep Henry from bolting. 

For the first time in a long time, he feels not safe but _secure_. He feels like he’s where he wants to be, even if he was never _supposed_ to get to be here. 

“You’re still not wearing pants,” he says, and smiles even as his face burns when Frank laughs and nods. It feels very satisfying when, reaching down to grip Frank through his briefs, that laughter chokes around something low and hungry. “I wanna -- is it okay if I…?”

Another kiss. Frank kisses him like it’s a replacement for all the words he won’t say, and Henry finds he doesn’t exactly mind. Not when it feels so good, for once, to have Frank speechless.

“Wanna suck your dick,” he says finally, one foot already on the floor, ready to sink back off the bed and get what he wants before the moment passes. Henry’s not sure he’s ever felt so urgent about a sex act, like he’ll never get the chance again if he doesn’t take it now. He keeps thinking that Frank doesn’t repeat things, won’t bring it up if Henry flubs it now -- it has to be now. He has it, he has to take it.

Frank just stares at him, all sense knocked out of his head by the offer, so Henry kisses him again, the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his jaw. When Frank angles his head, trying to get Henry’s mouth on his again, Henry pulls back and asks again. “Would that be okay, Frank? Can I?”

That dumbstruck nod might not be the screaming encouragement of his dreams, but it’s plenty to do the job. Frank’s hands slide off of Henry, slow like he’s reluctant to stop touching, and he shifts back to the edge of the cot, legs spread, watching Henry as he nudges the medical bag out of his way and moves in between Frank’s thighs. 

Getting on his knees has never made Henry feel _powerful_ before. 

It's not the first time, probably not even the hundredth, and there's a sort of pleasant familiarity to the thick thighs on either side of him, the incredibly masculine feel of the body he gets to touch. But while Henry's dating history might have had him with a good number of hard-bodied, dark-haired older men (older, stern, demanding) this feels fundamentally different, _better,_ than it has before. 

Like catching the thing he's been chasing for so long he forgot he was after it. 

Frank's not moving him, Frank's not _demanding,_ he's not _taking._ Henry may or may not have indulged in a number of fantasies at one time or another, but this isn't anything like what his imagination had come up with. He'd expected to feel overpowered, overwhelmed, moved by the sheer force and bulk of Frank's want. There's something so exhilarating about the hitch of Frank's breath, the twitch of his hands, the jerky way he shifts his legs apart to give Henry more room.

Something empowering in the way Frank's eyes have gone wide and shocked, watching him like he can't believe his luck. The way he bites his lip like he's got no other way to keep himself quiet, jaw clenched like he's fighting to keep himself still. Frank's cock, when Henry presses his palm to the bulge between Frank's legs, is rock hard, straining his ugly y-fronts, and that's for _Henry._ _Henry_ did that.

It's a fucking rush, it's something Henry knows instinctively that he'll never figure out how to categorize. He can't shake the unease of knowing how powerful Frank is, the violence he's capable of, but neither can he quash the _pride_ that comes from having him eager and aching under Henry's hands. 

He looks half desperate in a way Henry’s never seen him. He’s seen just about every expression he thought Frank was capable of, but this hunger, this keen want and exclusive focus is so different to Frank’s usual attention. In honesty, Henry’s not sure if _anyone_ has ever looked at him the way Frank’s looking at him right now, like he’s only got eyes for Henry, the whole rest of the world be damned.

Normally Frank’s so vigilant, attention divided in any given room so he’ll register any threat from any angle before anything can get the drop on him. Seeing him focus so intently on a single thing is an incredibly intense experience, and _being_ the subject of that focus is thrilling, intimate.

Frank's briefs are wet where the head of his cock is pressed against the fabric, and Henry swallows convulsively and gives up on looking, on touching just with his hands, ducking forward to get his mouth on that damp spot because he absolutely can't wait anymore. There's too much blood rushing in his ears again to make out which curse snarls its way out of Frank's throat, but the warm weight of Frank's hand cradling the back of his head is unexpectedly nice.

All of it is so much better than Henry would ever have dared to dream. Frank tastes bitter and salty through his underwear, and Henry's eager now to get him bare because the taste will be so much more potent without cotton in the way. He feels dizzy with it all, the strength of his want and the thrill of it being Frank, truly Frank, under his hands, letting him set the pace. 

Then, Frank's hand slides along the back of his neck and down, curling against his shoulder and pushing gently with this weak, resigned noise. Henry can hear all too clearly when Frank says, "Stop. Stop, just -- get up, stop."

Frank's hand on his shoulder is as gentle pushing him away as it is impossible to fight, and Henry is lost at first, confused, all that brilliant exhilaration in his chest crumbling to ash. It's amazing, really, how much rejection from Frank still hurts.

"You, shit, Henry, don't -- you don't deserve this, get up."

Words hit like a kick to the face, made worse somehow by Frank's tone, by the bitter, almost regretful twist in them. He sounds like he doesn't _want_ to say this, but he _has_ to, and that's a real laugh, isn't it? Frank's made is abundantly clear that he doesn't _have_ to do anything he doesn't _want._

Henry doesn't -- he _can’t_ understand this. He _never_ understands what the fuck is going through Frank's head, least of all where he himself is concerned. He'd been right before -- there was no _knowing_ Frank, and doesn't that just drive the idea home? Frank, bringing out this casual cruelty in tones that make it obvious he's trying to sugar coat the message with some fucked-up, Frank-style kindness.

You don't deserve this.

That's what it boils down to, isn't it? That's what it _always_ is going to be, that -- that Henry fundamentally falls short. In every area that he could be useful for, he never quite makes up for all the shit that's obnoxious. He'll never be what Frank needs him to be -- what anyone needs him to be. 

Henry's not _enough._ He's not strong enough, not good enough, not smart or brave or tough enough to be _worth_ Frank taking the _risk_ of letting in close. _Keeping_ close.

He tries not to take it personally. Who the fuck the could measure up to whatever sky-high standard Frank's got? It's not the first time someone's told Henry they didn't want him after all before things got too hot and heavy, either, so maybe it's not even just Frank, maybe it's -- maybe--

He tries not to take it personally, but he knows well enough, jerking out of the too-gentle grip of Frank's hand against his shoulder, that he's not good enough to manage that, either.

"Fuck you, Frank," he says, as evenly as he can. "You -- I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you, but _fuck you._ "

"Hen--"

"No, shut the fuck up. Jesus, you don't get to -- you don't _say_ shit like that to someone who's -- to _anyone_!"

"I didn't --"

Henry's not interested in finding out what Frank _didn’t._ He's not interested in the wide, shocked look of Frank's eyes, or the way his kiss-swollen lips press tight together as Henry grabs his discarded shirt and storms out the back of the van with as much dignity as he can manage.

Christ knows he's not _done_ with Frank, not ready to wash his hands of him again and go back to figuring out how to be one more normal civilian, but he needs five goddamn minutes where he doesn't have to look at Frank. He needs air. He needs a fifty gallon drum of cold water to stick his head in and cool the furious, humiliated blush burning his face. A gun to --

_God, fuck. Shit._

Leave it to Frank to test every single but of trauma recovery Henry had managed. He's already had to blunt force push himself through the start of two panic attacks since Frank smashed his way back into his life. He hasn't felt this much self-loathing or reproach in years, and having to shove his way through stalks of corn to get any sense of being safely _alone_ only adds to the tally of incredible unfairness currently comprising his day.

He makes it less that four hundred yards from the van before his vision blurs over entirely and the tightness around his chest starts to feel like too much. His hands ache from slapping thick leaves and rigid stalks out of his way; his heart feels like it's turning inside out. 

As a kid, he'd learned quickly how to cry without drawing attention to it, so he doesn't really _sob_ when he drops into the dirt and tucks his knees to his chest, curling into as tight of a ball as he can right there between the rows of corn. He doesn't sob, but his breath _does_ hitch and the ratty denim of his jeans _does_ absorb the tears that start rolling down his cheeks.


	6. Waiting for a Miracle

It's stupid to take this so hard.

Bad as it hurts, big as feels, it's not exactly something Henry shouldn't have anticipated. He'd known it wouldn't end well, and he'd gone ahead anyway because it was too tempting to resist. 

Frank pushed people away, it's something he was doing before Henry ever came along. Henry knew that, he'd acknowledged it, he's _accepted_ that years ago, when he'd come running to Chicago hoping to put everything behind him. This probably isn't about _Henry_ at all; it was never about Henry. 

Maybe that should even be flattering -- Frank was worried that Henry might hurt him if he got in close. Henry was enough of what Frank wanted to be a threat, so Frank needed to push him away. Of course he did.

Even if Henry can't buy that line, he should be used to finding out he's a disappointment. How he falls short of expectation, how he's not worth the effort it takes to put up with him, how he doesn't cut it for the long term.

He should be able to summon up enough pride or self esteem to tell himself that it doesn't _matter_ if anyone else thinks he's good enough. That he simply _is_ good enough, exactly as he is. He should be able to fight that crushing sense of inadequacy, deny it for the lie he's worked _so hard_ to see it as.

What exactly is the point of all the effort, he wonders, when all the evidence points to there being no lie at all. 

He _wasn’t_ good enough. He hadn't been good enough for his father, not that he wanted any of the things that asshole wanted for or from him. The point still stood, he hadn't been good enough for dear old dad to even _pretend_ not to be an asshole, and if he wasn't good enough for Dad, how the hell could he ever think he was good enough for Frank fucking Castle.

And sure, he could get a date and night he wanted -- no trouble on Grindr, not for Henry -- but no one wanted to stick around with him. In the last ten years, he's only had the one long-term committed relationship with Ben, which ended in a summary dismissal after eighteen months, and he could count the number of second dates he'd attended since on one hand. Most of those he'd solicited himself, they weren't pursued. 

So it wasn't just his dad or Frank's loft standards of worthiness he was falling short of.

Why not? He hadn't done anything when the gunmen had showed up and opened fire in the counseling center. His boss stepped in, tried to keep attention off the women there seeking services, and she died. Joan put herself between them and Henry's office and was injured. Henry hadn't done anything but played the good hostage, and then run the fuck away when Frank showed up.

Fuck, he was pathetic. At this point it wouldn't shock him at all to hear the van start up, the crunch of gravel and rumble of the engine as Frank pulled back onto the road without him. Probably it would be a mercy if he _did,_ just so Henry doesn't have to try to recover from blowing up like that when they're stuck in close quarters for the foreseeable future.

No excuse for losing his shit over a rejection he should have seen coming a mile away.

Like he needed anymore proof that Frank was right. 

He’s not sure how much time passes before he starts to hear Frank moving through the corn. Long enough to have gotten boots on; he’s probably following Henry's trail, so Henry _hopes_ he took the time to finish dressing himself. The corn is tall and grown in tight rows, rough to push through. 

It's not like Henry’s blind stumble into the field had been covert enough for Frank not to be able to find some sign to follow. He should stand up, go back to van on his own, act like a fucking adult until Frank decides where he's going to ditch him.

Instead, his arms lock around his legs, whole body tightening up where he's crouched in the shadow of the rows, and he listens to Frank's careful approach, burying his face against his knees again. 

"Henry," he says after a second of standing there, several feet up the row. He's still doing that thing with his voice, that awkward forced softness, like he thinks he needs to be gentle about this. Honestly, hearing him threaten to kill Henry had been easier to take.

"I need a minute, Frank," he says into his knees, refusing to move now that Frank is there, watching him. He knows he's being an idiot, dramatic, but the idea of having to look at Frank trying to be _considerate_ about crushing Henry's feelings is more than he thinks should be asked of him. If Frank wants to do this kindly, he can allow Henry the dignity not to be seen with tears and snot on his face from this little breakdown.

A moment of stillness, no words, like Frank's just standing there watching him, hesitating. Henry is acutely aware of the way Frank's stare feels, he'd attuned himself to that very particular attention forever ago -- once a threat, like a rat trapped with a tiger, that somehow became a comfort. Frank's regard had weight, and he feels that weight on him now, but Frank says nothing for much too long, before sighing and stepping forward, closer.

"Kid," he starts, and Henry's fingers clench against his legs, digging against the denim of his jeans as his teeth grind down the words threatening to be said. They bubble up in his throat anyway, like a fresh wave of tears; to tell Frank to shut up, to earn the moniker by insisting he's _not_ a child.

Though Henry manages not to speak, Frank still pauses again, and it's a uniquely ugly experience, witnessing Frank dither. Henry can't help but wonder, a touch unkindly, if Frank's difficulty in trying to spare Henry's feelings is as uncomfortable for him as it is for Henry. It's uncharitable, he knows -- Frank _has_ feelings, many of them. He's just spent years smothering all the parts of himself that foster empathy.

Finally, Frank huffs, low and annoyed, boots scuffing the dirt as he turns half away from Henry. "Christ, just, c'mon, get up. Let's go."

Henry's not exactly sure what he plans on doing even as he's moving, shoving himself to his feet so fast it's dizzying. Whatever it was, it must have read with enough violent intent to spark Frank's instinct -- and it _is_ anger Henry feels most acutely, anger wound so tightly in him that it burns. He _thinks_ he might have been winding up to step in and slap Frank across the face, which is no less than he deserves, but the thought of actually doing it floods Henry with both vindication and a weird sort of embarrassment. 

After everything, he'd still rather slap Frank than do anything that would really hurt him long term. 

Whatever he'd _meant_ to do, it hardly matters. Frank may have turned away, staring up the row into the seemingly endless convergence of green, but he's turning back before Henry's even fully on his feet, and Henry doesn't even manage a full step before Frank's moving. It's no contest and Henry knows that, who will win in a open, direct confrontation; Henry couldn't touch Frank if Frank didn't allow it.

One big, rough hand catches Henry's upraised arm by the wrist, Frank stepping in as he drags Henry closer, using his merciless grip on Henry's forearm to twist him around and yank him back so his shoulders hit Frank's chest. Before he can even think to struggle, Frank's free hand is up around his throat, thick, warm fingers shoved just under Henry's jaw, not strangling or smothering, just making the option of speaking incredibly uncomfortable.

It's not the same hold as the one they'd adopted to play hostage and captor in the alley behind the outreach clinic. There's no gun and no audience. Frank's sharp breaths against Henry's scalp aren't made heavy by pain or exhaustion, just Frank's own attempts to force himself calm; Henry's fingers digging against the hand pressed to his throat are there on pure animal impulse, frightened scrambling to get the threat away from his neck.

Like this, alone out in the open, caught in the early morning light out in the middle of nowhere, unobserved... there's a terrible sort of intimacy to the brief violence of being grabbed and held like this. There's no one to act for, no one to see; it's honest, it's simple.

So is the horror Henry feels when his fingers skate over the ridges of scab where his nails had dug claw marks out of Frank's arm last time they were in this sort of position. So is the little shiver of anticipation, distinctly different from fear, that jolts through him every time Frank's breath stirs his hair.

Frank could kill him very easily like this, or choke him unconscious. Hurt him just to make a point, break his arm or his collarbone, kick him and break his leg.

He doesn't, and Henry at no point sincerely fears that he will. Frank's not even holding tight enough to Henry's throat to make breathing hard; he holds him in just such a way as to make struggling difficult and unpleasant, and then he refuses to move at all. 

Henry's heart slams against his ribs, reckless and wounded as he struggles anyway, all instinct, angry and mortified and hurt, until Frank finally twists the arm he's got pinned between them in a sharp warning.

"Stop. Listen to me, goddamnit," he snarls, voice so low Henry's certain he wouldn't be able to hear it if they were even inches further apart. " _S_ _top it,_ I said, just fucking listen to me."

Not that Henry has much of a choice; he can't free himself from Frank's grip like this. The best he can do is brace his feet and strain his back trying to put some semblance of space between them, but the effort is exhausting and he has no delusions about Frank waiting him out.

Relaxing means letting his body fall back against Frank's, letting Frank's grip and bulk support him. It's hardly more comfortable than choking himself against Frank's hand, but the second Henry stops fighting, Frank's breathing evens out. Henry can feel the thump of Frank's heart, steady and slow, against his back.

"I said it wrong," Frank says carefully, voice quiet and almost soft again. "But I meant everything I said."

On reflex, Henry struggles again, just for a second. There's heat building on his face and he feels vicious, snarling, "You said I wasn't good enough to suck your dick, you arrogant --"

"That's what you _heard!_ ” Frank snaps, every bit as irritable as Henry again. Henry can feel the fingers at his throat tense, but it's... strange. Frank doesn't actually choke him, or even come close to it. The hold he's got on Henry is carefully calibrated to immobilize without really hurting him, and it stays that way. "Use your goddamn brain, what else did I say to you back there? You really think I was trying to insult you?"

And Henry -- pauses, a terrible sort of shame slipping uneasily into his head. It feels cold, like icy water sluicing up the back of his neck and into his skull, the places where his body touches Frank the only warmth left to him.

Because Frank _had_ ... he _had_ been sweet, before that, in his way. He'd been compliant and helpful while Henry was redoing his bandages, eager and more than willing to go with the kissing when that started. That was _why_ the rejection had hurt so much when it came, why Henry assumed Frank had intended it --

"Said I appreciated what you've been doin' for me," Frank says, and he's got his face tucked against the back of Henry's head now, like he wants this to be something softer, and that shameful unease is blossoming into a full grown horror, now. "I meant that. And I said you didn't deserve what I was letting happen there, and I meant that too."

Henry's not sure he's ever experienced a more mortifying realization than this. Frank Castle is being the emotionally rational voice of reason. 

He slumps into Frank's grip fully, wishing that he could just black out. Or collapse into dust. Sublimate into a fine mist and blow away on the warm morning breeze.

"You deserve better than kneeling in my old trash and suckin' me off in the back of a van," Frank continues, and there's the warmth Henry's been missing, burning across his face. That's very possibly the closest to a romantic sentiment Henry can imagine coming out of Frank's mouth.

It's nearly unbearable, a degree of mortification Henry's uncertain he can physically survive. Without thinking, he raises his hand again, resting it on Frank's forearm when he starts to move his hand away from Henry's neck. When Henry tries to turn his head, Frank lets him go entirely, but not before brushing his lips against Henry's temple, because evidently even in this Frank's instinct is to go for the kill.

Forcing himself to turn and face Frank, Henry's grateful that Frank's hand comes back to rest on his shoulder, palm on the curve and thumb resting gently at the hollow between his clavicles. It might have been threatening, that massive hand capable of such quick violence, but Henry finds it steadying. 

"Did it occur to you that maybe I didn't really mind how dirty the van is?" He asks, wincing a little at the belligerence in his own tone, especially after Frank's had become so soft. "That I'm capable of making those choices myself and literally any other way you could have checked in on the matter would have been better than --"

The grip on his shoulder tightens marginally when Frank closes the half step between them, the change in proximity forcing Henry to angle his head back or talk to Frank's neck. In the clipped pause that creates, Henry's building argument spoiled by the unexpected motion, Frank smiles again, that soft and vaguely bemused expression.

"In my defense," he says, "I spent the night bleeding, and th' blood I had left was definitely not goin' to my brain, thanks to you."

Henry scoffs at that, but he's fighting his own fitful smile. "Are you seriously going to try blaming _me_ for your --"

There's a number of ways Frank might shut him up, Henry figures. Laugh at him, tell him outright to be quiet, shove past and walk away, go back to van and leave Henry no choice but to follow. Having him shift that hand from Henry's shoulder to his jaw, so he's holding Henry's head at that particular angle, and then leaning down to kiss him right there in the sunshine, is perhaps the last option Henry would realistically expect. 

It turns out to be a hugely successful option.

When they break apart, Henry red faces and a little breathless, Frank licks his lips and says, "What I'm saying is, sixty seconds after you got your mouth on me, I woulda been done, and we both woulda been disappointed."

Henry has to pause, trying to work out if that's meant to be a compliment or an insult, and in that pause Frank finally does gently nudge him aside, pushing his way back toward the van. Judging by the way he's limping, it's more than time for him to get off his feet, and Henry feels a shiver of self-recrimination for making him stand out here for so long.

It's not hard to catch up with him though, and when he wordlessly hands over the keys and tells Henry to start looking for a roadside motel, Henry feels something like relief easing through his chest.


	7. The Whole World Fades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: this chapter owes much to Inbox, who helped greatly in whipping it to readability. Thank him, who knows how long it would have taken me to complete this without him.

Just outside a small town with the unlikely name of Hustler, itself little more than an intersection with grandiose aspirations, Henry pulls into an open parking spot at the Sunnyside Inn. Like most motels of its type, it's just a long row of rooms headed by the office, each room with its own parking space. There are no cars parked at any of the rooms despite the early hour, but the 'open' sign is flickering in the window of the office.

It's a pleasant enough setting, if you like the smell of cow shit and being surrounded by the endless flat fields of corn and alfalfa that seem so popular around here, but the lack of other clientele against the general air of run-down antiquity makes it a shade eerie even with the bright summer sun beating down in full force at nine in the morning.

When Henry comments dryly that this looks like a _lovely_ place to get murdered, Frank huffs a laugh and mimes stabbing someone through a shower curtain, demonstrating more pop-culture awareness in the span of a few seconds than Henry had ever seen from him before. It earns a laugh that dies weak and premature when Frank leans forward to root through the glove box and produces a thick envelope of cash, from which he fishes a tidy stack of bills that are passed to Henry.

It's far from the most money Henry's ever seen in one place, but it's not often someone shoves several hundred dollars at him. 

"Uh, you _can_ read the sign, right," he asks, gesturing loosely out the window at the sign announcing nightly rates of forty-five dollars, weekly rates negotiable. Even if Frank _hadn’t_ seen the sign, Henry knows damn well this is his preferred sort of place to overnight if he's out of the city, so there's no way he doesn't know this is way too much money.

Frank's eyes crease when he smiles -- it was such a rare occurrence before that Henry hadn't ever really noticed. It looks nice, looks... very normal, very human, which Henry never really forgets Frank is, but knows many people do, by Frank's own design. 

"You're gonna pay for two nights. After you bring me a key, I got some errands I need you to run, so I can get some sleep," Frank cocks an eyebrow at him, still smiling slightly. It's more in his eyes now than anywhere else, but maybe that's why Henry's heart seems so tight in his chest suddenly -- Frank looking at him so fond and trusting him once again to take care of the little shit that needs doing while he sleeps. "’Less you’re still --"

“No, I got it," Henry says, shoving the cash in his pocket as he pops the door open and steps out, the better to avoid doing something stupid, like leaning over and kissing Frank again. 

The ancient man at the desk in the office sits up when Henry enters, all country smiles and delight at having a customer so early. He doesn't seem surprised that Henry pays in cash, or bothered by him paying for multiple nights at a time. He slides the ledger over to Henry, and there Henry hesitates, knowing damn well he can't sign his legal name and trying not to stall out over what he's supposed to do when asked for ID.

It's a break in their momentum that lasts just long enough for the clerk to helpfully clear his throat. "Andrew Jackson is a popular name for one night," he says, holding Henry's eye with a friendly smile. "Sam Grant for longer, extras included."

Henry takes the anvil-heavy hint and peels another fifty from the roll, watching it disappear into the clerk's pocket as he signs the ledger under Daniel Baley, the name he'd been using on hacking forums when he was a kid and still thought Asimov was the master of scifi. If he's going to get murdered in Bate's Country Kraft Motel, he thinks, it might as well be as Daniel Baley.

As Henry's stowing the remainder of the cash in his wallet, the old man asks if there's anything else Henry needs help with, and thinking of the sort of errands Frank might need him to run, Henry takes the opportunity to ask where in town he might grab some extra clothes. It's not exactly a shock to hear the clerk tell him to take the highways a little further north, into 'the city' -- Tomah, he calls it, and given that Henry's never heard of it, he assumes it's more than likely just another town, but one ambitious enough to have a Walmart.

Before Henry can turn to leave, the old man settles back in his chair, and tells him with that same easy smile that the office closes at midnight, but he's welcome to phone anytime before then if he needs something Walmart doesn't have.

It's all in all a relatively painless process, even if Henry walks away feeling a little fleeced; fleeced or not, he's still leaving with everything he went in looking for.

Taking his key as Henry shuts the driver's side door after himself, Frank gives Henry a long look and then pointedly asks how much extra he'd paid for the room. His eye roll at Henry's defensive reply is so heavy it's almost more scathing than him calling Henry a chump, but Henry's relatively certain that's meant to be another Frank-style joke.

And if it's not, he's definitely not going to invite hearing otherwise, so he shuts his mouth and waits for the list of jobs Frank wants done.

Simple stuff, for the most part, predictable things Henry had already thought of, but important. Gas the van, find Frank new pants, get them both some food. The most concerning, and definitely most legally dubious, is Frank asking him to find him some antibiotics. In the past, when Frank had needed something like that it had already been stockpiled -- heroin runners evidently kept Keflex in bulk, and Frank was happy to take it off their hands. Failing that, Frank would get it from the Night Nurse.

Out in the sticks, Henry assumes his best bet would be from a farm supply store, or maybe a vet, and works very hard not to openly wince at the idea. All he knows for a certainty is that even antibiotics for cats need a prescription, and the idea of strolling into a pharmacy sans prescription didn't exactly thrill him. 

He makes a mental note to check in with the desk clerk before he leaves. He figures asking can't hurt, and with the money Frank's handed him, it's unlikely he can't get a lead at the very least.

Before he gets out of the van, Frank pauses for a moment, eyes locked on Henry in a predictably inscrutable stare. After a second, he reaches out and closes his hand on Henry's shoulder, a brief squeeze before turning away. After everything else, it's hardly an intimate exchange, but Frank had never made a habit of idle touching. In the moment, it feels as powerful as a kiss.

Frank makes it the short distance between the van and their room with the barest hint of the limp he's shown earlier. Henry figures it's a pretty wasted effort -- there's no sign of any kind of security cameras anywhere, and if there's someone watching, Henry can't see them.

Once the door shuts between them, Henry pulls the van out of their spot and drives it a few hundred feet up the lot to park outside the office door. The clerk smiles at him as he walks back in, but doesn't look terribly surprised to see him again so soon.

"You need somethin' son?" He asks, sitting forward at the desk, attentive and ready to help. His eyes are hungrier than that friendly smile suggests, watching Henry fish his wallet out again. 

There's not a whole lot of options though. In Chicago, maybe even still in New York, Henry could have gotten whatever Frank needed on his own, quick and efficient, probably a totally digital money exchange and a dead drop pick up. Out here, he's got no clue what rules he's meant to play by, it's old school; analog against his usual digital. 

Henry slips a twenty on the counter and it disappears before he's even fully retracted his hand. 

"I was hoping you could tell me where I could get some antibiotics," he says, pleased that he sounds a good deal more casual that he feels. He _feels_ like his whole body has wound up in an impossible tension. 

At least the guy doesn’t point him toward a pharmacy. He figured it was obvious enough that he was looking for something a little more discreet than that, but the guy had no reason not to test how deep Henry’s pockets went before his patience wore out, either, and Henry technically had just given him a twenty for nothing. Practically asking to be scammed.

“You still goin’ up to the city?” The clerk asks instead, and smiles when Henry nods. “On your way up that way, say, oh, twenty minutes up the road, you’re gonna pass Meyer’s Veterinary Hospital. Go in there, tell ‘em you’re stayin’ at the Sunnyside ‘n what you need. They’ll find you something.”

Confirming he's going to feed Frank literal horse pills isn't the most reassuring thing Henry as heard recently, but it's a good enough solution, and one the clerk has clearly offered many times before. He slides over another twenty and mutters his thanks, still not entirely convinced he isn't very slowly paying for his own eventual gruesome motel murder.

Getting back in the van and onto the highway, following the directions he'd been given, Henry takes care to make note of the veterinary hospital so he can find it on his way back. Luckily, despite being almost the exact same dusty colour as the dirt lot it's sitting on, it's fronted by a massive sign, easy to spot from the road.

Tomah is certainly a much wider spot in the road than Hustler, but it's a far cry from what Henry thinks of when he imagines a real city. If ten thousand people live here he'd be shocked. Still, it's got a Walmart and plenty of places to find a fresh-cooked meal besides, everything Frank asked him to find in a handful of stops. 

Something about the mundanity of walking the aisles of a big box store, picking out shelf-stable foods and trying to remember what size jeans Frank wore is incredibly soothing after so much tension and emotional upheaval. Having Frank trust him -- to take the van, to follow directions without supervision or a com in his ear, to take care of little things so he can get some sleep -- is more thrilling than it should be, and the relative peace of the supermarket is pleasant.

It's just barely past noon when Henry sets a paper bag of carry out in the passenger seat, ready to head back. Frank's food will undoubtedly be cold by the time he eats it, but Henry figures the room probably at least has a microwave, and if it doesn't, he's seen Frank eat nastier things in worse conditions. 

The day is proving to be as blisteringly hot as the previous, but the fluffy white clouds that had dotted the sky that morning are building into a heavy thunderhead by the time Henry hits the highway again. Henry's no country kid, but he knows a thunderstorm when he smells one, and he wants to get back to the motel before the rain hits, hopefully with all the supplies stowed.

First, though, he has to run by the vet. 

Meyer's sits back off the main highway on a long, deceptively winding dirt drive, it's massive, sun-damaged wooden sign advertising what the unassuming, dust-coloured building couldn't manage. The parking lot is the same rocky dirt as the driveway, and is almost entirely empty. For a minute, Henry sits behind the wheel, feeling out his own nerves and centering himself on the fact that Frank had trusted him to manage this well enough that he'd sent him alone to do it.

Henry doesn't want to fuck up, and that's the source of his nervous, twitchy energy. He doesn't want to disappoint Frank, but -- and maybe this shouldn't be so, but it is and he's in no place to try fighting it anymore -- having Frank's faith in him went a long way in bolstering Henry's confidence in what he was capable of.

There's no one at the desk when he walks in, and the empty waiting room reeks of disinfectant, distressed animal, and ammonia, papered over with the chemical floral aroma of an air freshener not quite up to the task of masking everything else. Given the emptiness of the chairs, Henry imagines the few other cars in the lot must belong to employees; certainly there's no one lingering waiting.

A bell sits on the desk next to a sign imploring him to ring for help, and Henry rings it before he can overthink things and let the silence of the place bait him to bolt empty handed.

After a few seconds of waiting, a stern-looking older woman emerges from around a corner and approaches the desk, looking harried and disgruntled to be dealing with a guest. She's not as old as the motel clerk, and her attention doesn't hold the same eat-you-alive sharkiness, but she's got the exact same razor focus in her eyes when Henry pulls out his cash. Irritable as she'd first looked, her demeanor shifts to a disarming friendliness when he calls her 'ma'am' and asks how she's doing.

"Fine, always fine," she says with a sort of dry cheer. "How can I help you, son?"

"Well, I'm staying at the Sunnyside, over in Hustler," he starts, feeling his own unease unwind a little as he slips into the old half truths and whole lies routine. It helps too that she nods, like she'd known already, had been expecting him for a while; he'd wondered if the motel clerk would call ahead so he'd be expected, but even if he hadn't it was obvious that something like this arrangement has happened enough that there's a well-established protocol.

Whether the motel clerk called ahead for Henry or not, Henry's got cash in his hand, and the cash is what's being focused on here. She barely looks away from the roll in his hands while she tells him she figured, someone had called and said a young fella might stop by this morning. 

"Heard you might be lookin' for somethin'," she says by way of prompting, and Henry nods, a little relieved that she doesn't have some song and dance lined up necessitating more fake names and vague lies. No small talk, no slick introduction, just straight on through so the process is as straightforward and painless as it's possible to be.

Henry's new to this particular game, but he's always been a quick study and it's not hard to imagine the best way to ensure everyone involved stays compliant. He peels a pair of fifties from the diminishing stack and slides them across the counter as he says, "I was hoping I could get some antibiotics."

She swipes the bills off the counter and they fold up and disappear into one of the pockets on her scrubs. There's no broadened grin from her, no shark to the angle of her smile. She seems to consider him for a minute, weigh something, and then raises a single finger in a gesture bidding him to wait, and bustles off the way she'd come. 

Left alone for even a few minutes starts to make Henry feel fidgety -- two people in a very small town being on the take feels like a lot of attention on his and Frank's illicit activity, but he doesn't really see how it can be helped. Certainly sticking it out is better than running now, and so he folds his hands on the counter and continues to do his best impression of someone who’s relaxed as he waits. 

When she comes back a minute later, she plunks a small, unlabeled bottle of pills on the counter, locking eyes with him in a very no-nonsense stare. "Cut these in half, then take three halves in the morning, three at night, till they're gone. Even if you start feeling better before they're gone, finish the course. Should be a week's worth there."

Henry nods in a way he hopes is respectful and then, when she doesn't release the bottle, remembers himself. He fishes out the last hundred dollar bill from the center of the dwindling roll Frank had given him, and passes it to her, watching it fold up and disappear in one hand as she slides the medication over with the other. She smiles and waves him on when he tells her to have a great day, and he manages to keep himself from running until he’s out the door.

In the end, he does manage to beat the rain, but only just. Thunder crashes so loud as he’s toeing the door to the room open that it seems to shake the ground, and a moment later it begins to pour. The smell of the rain on the hot ground blooms pleasantly, washing away the hot farm odor that had been so thickly present. 

The air conditioner _is_ running, though, so Henry closes and locks the door before turning to really take in their rented space. Henry figures it would be generous to say it had been updated last in the 80s, but there’s a mini fridge under the little table meant to serve as a desk, and a phone and notepad on the desk itself. The carpet is thin, the tv is one of the old Sharps with a built in VCR. 

In fairness, the bed looks very comfortable, but that could just be how completely relaxed Frank looks. Henry’s unsure if he woke Frank coming in, or if that crash of thunder did the job, but he’s awake, watching Henry from the bed as he puts supplies away. By the time Henry’s setting pulling the containers of carryout from their bag, Frank’s closed his eyes and fallen back asleep, snoring quietly.

Neither of them have eaten recently (sharing a blueberry CLIF bar doesn’t count) and Henry imagines Frank’s probably hungry, but he doesn’t wake him up. If Frank was inclined to prioritize food over sleep, he’d have gotten up and dug through the bags himself, and Frank needs the sleep. 

Henry puts Frank’s food in the fridge and then eats half his salad before closing the container and putting it with Frank’s. In the low light, with the drumming of rain against the window and the rumble of thunder overhead, Henry feels his own exhaustion rearing up again. He might have slept last night, but he suddenly feels so tired he might as well not have. 

Given the magnitude of everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, the repeated whiplash of emotional content included, he supposes that’s probably fair. He doubts this situation would be one his therapist would approve of, and he’s participated in at least half a dozen emotionally super-charged situations since lunch yesterday. 

Still, he hesitates to let himself relax. Sharing the bed with Frank was implied -- certain other things were _also_ hopefully implied, which was why Henry had lingered for a moment, waffling in the ‘family planning’ section of the pharmacy aisles before picking a lube and moving on -- but actually doing it still feels like a potential overstepping. 

Ultimately, he decides, Frank’s not going to wake up before Henry falls asleep where he’s sitting, and the bed is most certainly big enough for them both. He takes the paperback he’d grabbed for himself with him and sets it on the table beside the bed, just in case he can’t sleep, and climbs in carefully behind Frank. 

After a little bit of slow tossing, trying to find a comfortable way to settle without shoving against Frank and waking him up, Henry settles on his side and closes his eyes. They’re laying back to back, shoulders just touching, the scratchy duvet between them. Frank lays under it, Henry on top, still overly warm from the heat outside and enjoying the air conditioned cool. He can feel Frank breathing, deep slow breaths that press him just a little closer with every snore.

The bed creaks every time either of them shifts, but it’s not the shrieking nightmare Henry had worried it might be. When Frank turns over, it punctuates each step of the motion with a whine, settling into silence again as Frank’s arm settles over his waist. It’s not quite spooning; Frank’s still a little too far away for that, but it’s close. Intimate in how natural it feels even as his skin prickles at the unexpected contact. 

It’s pleasant, warm without making him sweat. Secure even if he’s not safe. He can smell Frank, not as potent as he had in the van, but enough that it’s impossible to forget who the source is.

Henry sighs and lets himself settle into the mattress, fully relaxed, and falls asleep like that.


	8. Take This Longing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long one, sorry for the delay.

Henry wakes once a few hours later, sunlight once again warming the room as the weight of Frank's arm slides, carefully slow, off his side. The bed sways and groans as Frank moves to slip off the far side, and as brief and shallow as Henry's rousing is, he's perfectly capable of noticing the care Frank's putting into not waking him. 

Briefly, he tries to stir himself to full consciousness, but Frank tells him softly to go ahead and sleep, and he obeys without really thinking about it. He's too tired to do anything but, and there's something about the way Frank sounds, standing over him, that makes it hard to think he won't be right there when Henry wakes for real.

Mostly, he dreams. If Frank leaves the room at all, Henry never notices -- he certainly doesn't make any noise to give himself away if he does, and when Henry comes awake again, much later but renewed and refreshed despite the dark, Frank is back on the bed, curled around Henry from behind. If it weren't for the fact that he'd changed out of the clothes he'd been wearing since yesterday at least, Henry might have thought the memory of Frank getting up had been a dream itself, comfortably close as Frank is now.

As it is, Frank's ripped and grime-stained shirt is gone, and so are the bloody jeans he'd asked Henry to replace. The blanket is no longer between them; Frank is on top of the rumpled bedding with Henry, nose pressed against the back of Henry's head and knees tucked against the back of his thighs. Henry's pretty sure there's three layers of fabric or less between his ass and Frank's junk, and while Frank's not hard right now the idea is still instantaneously arousing. 

Stretching a little where he lies, Henry waffles on waking Frank again. It's obvious that Frank's not deeply asleep anymore; his snores are just rough exhales, the kind of soft snoring he falls into when he allows a brief doze between steps in some big Mission. When Frank's really asleep, down deep and dreaming, his snores are the kind that would keep anyone else awake, at least until they acclimated to the sound.

Waking Frank means making sure he's started the antibiotic course, changing his bandages, warming food up and finally sharing a real meal. Potentially, it could also eventually mean a variety of other things, unless Frank's decided to put what happened in the van this morning entirely behind them.

The cuddling -- and this _is_ cuddling, whether Frank wants to call it that or not -- suggests that's not what Frank's planning to do. Actually, it rather suggests the opposite, because Frank doesn't do most things by accident, and Henry would be hard pressed to find a reason for Frank suddenly wanting to partake in all this touching that didn't have sexual roots.

Still, even if Frank is interested in getting around to whatever they might have in the back of the van, he had always put necessities ahead of anything like pleasure in the past. 

Really, that's the only downside to waking Frank: the cuddling will almost certainly stop, at least for a while. Frank is too damn practical minded to be indulgent, and for all Henry knows, he'll have gotten it in his head to take off tonight despite having paid two days in advance. Henry has always found it best not to stress out too much trying to anticipate Frank's mind, and that's even truer with this. He has, after all, no experience with this side of Frank.

Ultimately, he doesn't get much of a say. He's still working on trying to stretch the stiffness out of his legs when Frank's snoring hitches and then stops, Frank yawning against the back of Henry's neck. The arm around Henry's waist tightens a little, rocking Henry back against Frank's chest slightly as Frank stretches out as well. That little gesture, Frank's arm pulling Henry in closer incidentally because he's stretching, is so indulgently, mundanely sweet that Henry feels it clench in his chest.

Because Frank is holding him like this is normal, like they've been doing this for years. He presses his hand to Henry's chest and leaves it there, a warm point of pressure as he shifts himself even closer and kisses the back of Henry's neck.

There's no way Frank doesn't know he's awake, and Frank's clearly not pretending to sleep either. It's about as clear an invitation as Henry's going to be offered short of baiting Frank into saying out loud that he wants more, and still some small, nervous part of Henry wants to stay frozen just like this, laying on his side perfectly still, just to see what Frank would do. 

Henry knows Frank quite well, and he's pretty sure that he knows precisely what Frank would do if he doesn't move in some reciprocal manner; he'll get up, and the moment will gutter and die before anything ever happens.

It's easy, in the dark, to turn over, one quick, smooth motion that makes the bed squeak loudly and Frank compliantly lift up his arm. Once they're facing each other, as Frank's carefully settling his arm back in place with his hand resting low on the curve of Henry's spine, it's impossible to do anything but close the distance and kiss Frank. After a few careless, off-center kisses, Henry splays his hand against Frank's cheek, thumb pressed to Frank's chin, and uses that to center himself.

With only the microwave clock for light, the kiss is still somewhat messy as they shift themselves closer. It feels good, slowly working up from light, gentle brushes of lips to something deeper, wet and open. It's so calm, nothing about it being rushed, no omnipresent threat pushing Frank to speed things along. They take their time, and Henry only pauses when he realizes that they way they're oriented on the bed, Frank's laying all his weight on the side with the injured leg.

Frank is a good deal taller than Henry, and probably weighs at least twice as much, but he rolls over onto his back willingly when Henry pushes at his shoulder and starts to sit up. He doesn't try to drag or manhandle Henry with him at all, not that he needs to, and Henry can't seem to decide if that's a disappointment or not. 

At the very least, Frank seems happy to be able to get both hands on Henry, one sliding up the back of his shirt and the other on one shoulder as Henry moves to straddle Frank's middle. When Henry leans down, Frank sits up, pushing their mouths together and sinking back once he's sure Henry will follow -- the most force he's put into the entire exchange, and it's barely force at all.

It's absurdly good, all of it, even if Henry's wearing far too many clothes and Frank's mouth still tastes faintly of steak sauce. Frank's easy willingness is a thrill, little as it matches Henry's general fantasy of what making out with Frank would be like. He'd always imagined something gripping, fast and rough and probably brief, the kind of kissing that steals breath and leaves bruises. Frank fucking him would entail Frank tossing him on the bed and using him, no care for anything but his own need, or so Henry had always imagined.

In practice, Frank is relentlessly gentle. Compliant and relaxed, he lays against the pillows and leans up to chase kisses when Henry pulls even a little bit away, content to hand the lead off for now. His hand has drifted from Henry's shoulder to the back of his neck, but even there he's careful, not holding Henry still or forcing him to move.

Good as it had felt, kissing Frank in the back of his van, cloaked in the set-in stink of his unwashed sheets and spurred by a frantic, don't-fuck-this-up urgency, this moment is in so many ways better. The sense from the van, of being half a step away from some terrible failure, is entirely absent; this moment is not stolen or sneaked in despite what 'should' be happening. This is planned, and wanted, and joyously mutual, and there's no pressing need but the need to carry on just this way, touching and being touched.

Frank's not going anywhere, and he's not pushing Henry away either; he seems as implacably starved for this as Henry feels, and there's nothing stopping them now from feasting. 

When Henry shifts back, settling himself lower on Frank's stomach, he can feel the effort Frank makes into not bucking his hips, riled up in anticipation. Henry's half hard himself, and in that moment he's sure that if he moved just a little further down, he'd find Frank's cock once again hard and hot, all worked up just from kissing. It's flattering, and Henry hums as he breaks their kiss and presses new ones along Frank's jaw, enjoying the hitch in his breath when Henry's mouth finds the side of his neck.

If Henry bit down, right now, and tried to leave a mark, what would Frank do? Would he snap into the defensive, all tense as he grabbed Henry and threw him across the room? Would he finally let himself groan openly, tilt his head the rest of the way back and give Henry room? 

Dangerous, playing with so many new factors and so few concrete, reliable facts, but there's no way to resist the urge to find out when Frank doesn't push him immediately away. 

The barest hint of teeth makes Frank exhale a rough noise, and when Henry nips experimentally at the corded line of Frank's throat, Frank's hips hitch up again. The hand he's got resting on Henry's back digs in a little, offering a bit of extra stability to keep Henry from getting bucked off by the impulsive movement.

Frank's breath is dragging in his throat now, rough and sweet as Henry curves his spine tighter, kissing further down without giving him more where he wants it. Henry never got a lot of a chance to tease -- the men he was interested in rarely wanted any kind of delay to their gratification, which had seemed fine at the time -- but given the opportunity, he finds he'd like to see what Frank's willing to put up with.

A lot, it seems like. Henry detours to kiss at Frank's collarbones, licking sweat from the dip between them before sitting up and tugging his shirt up over his head. It feels exhilarating, having Frank beneath him, eyes wide in the dark as he stares up at him. Given the fact that Frank is probably used to sleeping with guys a lot closer to his own body type, Henry's quietly glad the lamps are off and the night moonless; it makes the way Frank's hands have moved to restlessly, rhythmically squeeze at Henry's thighs feel more understandable. 

In the dark, Frank could be a stranger, Henry could be anyone. There's no hard feelings in the dark, no bitter parting words, no mortifying attempt to hook up spoiled by Frank trying for the first time to be considerate. In the dark, Frank is stunning musculature and thoughtlessly twitching hips and Henry is just some twinky punk who managed to land the big fish.

Yet Frank still smells the same, under the cheap soap and reheated food; heady and comforting at the same time, and Henry could never forget who it is laying under him right now. He knows those hands, he knows that forcefully steadied breathing, he knows _Frank._

The hands restlessly drifting up his thighs, warm knuckles dragging against his stomach and calloused fingers pressing into the curve of his waist, those are Frank's hands. Frank's warmth, Frank's callouses. It's Frank touching him like he can't stop, Frank laying all spread out and complaint beneath him. The knowledge is as intrinsic and implacable as the throbbing between Henry's legs.

Maybe that's why his back arches like a bow, weight shifting up onto his knees so he's no longer seated at all, when Frank starts pulling open his belt, picking open the fly of his jeans. The barest pressure of Frank's hands against his groin makes Henry's heart stutter -- because that could be anyone, in the dark, but it's not. It's Frank.

"Saw you picked us up something that wasn't on my list," Frank rumbles, pulling Henry's belt free in a sharp motion and tossing it beside the bed. "Or was that s'posed to be a secret?"

Henry leans back, helpful and eager as Frank tugs at his waistband, pulling his trousers as low as he can without either of them getting up. It's very obvious, contextually, that Frank means the bottle of lube -- Henry's pretty sure Frank doesn't care about the pack of gum or the two liter of sparkling water. It's just a little hard to focus on much of anything when Frank's got his hand on Henry's cock, jacking him slow and far too loose.

"I had my own list," Henry manages, grasping at the very barest threads of sense he can find. "Trying to plan ahead. Be proactive."

That gets him a low huff of a laugh, Frank's grip tightening just enough to make Henry buck helplessly into the dry tunnel of Frank's fingers. It's rough and not entirely comfortable, but it's still too good in so many ways for Henry to do anything but seek more. Much closer to Henry's fantasies of what sex with Frank would be like, actually.

"Planning for this?"

It's not enough, not hard or fast enough to get Henry off, but it could be. If Frank wanted, if Frank would let him --

"Was this what you were thinking about when you picked that out?"

Frank's grip slackens again, a tease, the hand not on Henry's dick pressing against the small of his back, holding Henry up on his knees, leaning into that grip. It had occurred to Henry to imagine that Frank might be cruel, might want this to hurt, fast and hard and too much at once. Henry had been braced for that, maybe even hoped, just a little, for the kind of overwhelming exchange that would scratch this itch for good, burn it out of him.

He'd never thought to imagine Frank wanting to drag it out, make it last longer than a base necessity. He'd certainly never imagined how that would fan the flames of his own want, hollow him out with it.

"God, not even close," Henry finally manages, voice rough as he gets his hand around Frank's, trying to force him to hold tighter, move again. "Pretty sure a little lube wouldn't hurt here, though."

Frank knocks Henry's hand away as easily as batting a fly, his own grip dropping to Henry's thigh, holding him and giving him nothing at all. Henry bites out a curse and tries to replace Frank's hand with his own, only for his arm to be caught at the wrist.

Eyes well enough adjusted to the dark by now, Henry can see the angle of Frank's smile when he tries to pull free and can't. Frank's grip is iron, tight enough to force Henry to comply but too gentle to really hurt. It's hardly Henry's fault if he's making some kind of weak, whining sound now. He feels absurd and desperate, cock sticking up hard and his trousers half off, trapped and not really interested in getting away. 

"Jesus Christ," he huffs, "do you make everyone work this hard for it?"

"You want me to fuck you?" Frank asks, voice low and rough like he's honestly looking for an opinion, like there is any chance that's not exactly what Henry wants. Henry's honestly not sure he's ever felt like this before, trapped and powerful all at once. Frank sounds dazed, rapt and intent, like he doesn't care about anything but making Henry squirm, and the shiver that puts up Henry's spine is obscenely good.

When Henry pulls at the grip on his wrist, Frank shoves him over, rolling with him so he can pin Henry on his back, head half off the edge of the squalling bed, kissing him again at last. He's heavy, pushed between Henry's legs and draped over his torso; just as heavy as Henry had always imagined, the hot firm press of his body flooding Henry with blind desperation for more. His fingers dig at Frank's arms, his shoulders, the back of his neck; where Frank had been so fixedly gentle, positions reversed, Henry clutches Frank wherever he can, like there's a hope in hell of holding him if Frank decides he wants to move.

The position change has to hurt, Frank's knees shoved under Henry's thighs to hold them spread wide. Every time Henry shifts, rocking up to push closer, trying to get some of the friction he desperately needs, he feels Frank's leg shudder. While Frank doesn't make a sound or flinch in any other way, that's more than enough for Henry to tell he's hurting.

Knowing Frank’s injured, he should be trying to be considerate, should want Frank comfortable, but the idea of losing this, the heat and pressure of Frank's solid bulk pinning him to the bed, is notably awful, and Henry's never claimed to be purely selfless.

He wonders, as Frank grinds their hips together and finally, _finally_ gives Henry the contact he needs, if this is what being high is like. The whole world reduced down to a fog with a single perfect focal point. Scent and heat and pressure cascading around the periphery of his awareness, the push and drag of Frank's clothed dick against his own the only sensory input that matters. 

"Tell me you want it," Frank rumbles against his jaw, roughly the same spot as where he'd pressed a gun not too long ago. Before Henry can find his words, Frank grinds against him again, the sensation blinding. The waistband of Henry's jeans is digging into his thighs, barring him from spreading his legs as wide as he'd like, an uncomfortable reminder that neither of them are fully undressed.

"Stop asking and just _do_ it," he finally manages, words half slurred against Frank's lips as they break from another kiss. "We both know damn well you don't need written directions."

Frank's lips find Henry's throat, kissing hot, open-mouthed kisses while his leg shivers under Henry's thigh. "Like it, when you tell me," he says, muttering against Henry’s pulse. The words, the idea, hit hard. It's impossible not to think of this morning, however hard Henry tries not to, impossible not to remember his eyes in the cold light of that early dawn. Remember that sharpness in his gaze, the piercing focus, the easy way he'd complied with Henry's orders. 

It's not exactly new information, that Frank likes having orders to follow. Henry just never would have thought that it would extend to the bedroom, and he’d _definitely_ never expected to hear that his orders were rated high enough to be followed.

When Frank bites down gently on the crook of Henry’s shoulder, Henry manages to dig his heels into the bedding and thrust up against him, moaning even as he feels Frank’s injured leg flinches at the added pressure against it.

This isn’t going to work like this, however much they’re clearly both enjoying it. 

“Lemme up,” Henry groans, head still angled eagerly back to encourage the way Frank’s working a mark into his skin. “Get undressed, I wanna -- fuck, Frank.”

Not exactly eloquent, but given their batting average on communication, it’s not terrible. Given the interested hum from Frank, it was enough to get his point across, even if Frank takes his sweet time moving enough that Henry can wiggle free, almost spilling backwards off the bed. He can hear Frank stand and get out of his underwear, and then the creak of the bed as he gets back on it. 

Henry is a good deal less coordinated, shimmying the rest of the way out of his jeans and then stumbling in the dark, cussing under his breath as he fumbles his way back around the bed. Without a word, Frank leans over and flips on the lamp beside the bed, flooding the room in soft light.

For a second, Henry can’t help but stare. He figures it’s fair; he’s seen Frank naked before but never like this, and never _for him_. That’s the biggest turn-on of the night so far, not Frank’s hard, thick dick, not the obvious hunger on Frank’s face, not the lazy sprawl of him against the pillows or the way he’s touching with himself; it’s the fact that all of this is for Henry. He’s hard because of Henry, he wants it to be Henry who gets him off. 

If he told Frank to stop touching himself, would he? Or if he stood here, too far away for Frank to grab but plenty near enough to watch in intimate detail, and told Frank to stroke himself off -- would he obey that order too?

Henry licks his lips and watches how Frank watches him, almost giddy with his own desire, thrilled by Frank’s attention, his anticipation for what Henry’s going to do. Frank’s cock, thick and angry red, leaking in his own fist, looks so good in the moment that Henry almost entirely abandons his quest for the lube in favour of getting his mouth on him again. 

Then Frank makes this little noise, head jerking back in a fitful sort of come hither as his hips buck into his own hand, and Henry decides he’d much rather be able to watch Frank’s face when he cums. 

He finds the lube on the table by the bed, by the paperback he’d brought to bed with him. He knows he didn’t put it there, meaning Frank not only found it but moved it closer to the bed, in easy reach, and that’s certainly working for him more than he would have thought. 

When he gets on the bed again, wincing a little at how loud the squeaking seems now, Frank reaches for the bottle and Henry has a dizzying moment, wondering again exactly how far his orders could go here. Frank likes being told what to do, and if Henry asked him to get on his knees, put his face against the rumpled sheets and his ass in the air, would he? Would he balk at letting Henry fuck him?

A lot of very appealing options occur all at once, but there’s something on offer here -- something directly on offer that Henry’s wanted for longer than he’s even been able to fully acknowledge the want, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t take it while he’s got the opportunity. 

Climbing in Frank’s lap again, he lets Frank take the bottle from him as he ducks in for another kiss, shivering at the brush of Frank’s fingers against his cock as he continues to stroke himself. It feels even better now than it had before, skin to skin, enough light to really see how Frank’s pupils are blown wide, his lips wet and red. 

“Quit playing with yourself,” he says, voice backed by more authority than he thinks he’s really earned. “I want you to get me ready to ride you.”

Frank’s eyes close at that, like he needs a minute to get his brain to fully process what Henry’s said, and then he’s laying back against the pillows properly, hands moving with blind surety around Henry, squeezing what feels like half the bottle of lube over the crack of Henry’s ass before dropping the bottle and sliding his fingers through the mess, encouraging Henry to let himself fall against his chest and push back against his fingers. 

Carefully, a little slower than Henry would really like, actually, Frank eases one finger into him, working him open a bit before withdrawing. 

He teases a little, until Henry growls against his chest to quit fucking around, and then he’s working two fingers in, filling him up. What had seemed like too much lube at first quickly starts to feel barely sufficient, and Henry's immediately glad Frank kept the bottle near at hand.

Every guilty fantasy of Frank had included a measure of desperation, a certain roughness of need. It was hard, given what Henry had seen of Frank and the nature of their parting, to imagine Frank ever coming to him _wanting_ sex, but that didn't stop Henry from thinking, fantasizing, about it anyway. The Frank in Henry's dreams was always angry, tearing at his clothes and yanking him where he wanted. He'd fuck him with nothing but spit for lube, or if he had lube on hand, he'd barely take time to coat his cock before shoving Henry down and taking him.

Comparing that to the reality of having Frank waiting for encouragement or Henry's breathless growls of demands, of being so carefully touched and worked open, makes Henry's face burn and his chest feel tight. When he buries his face against Frank's pecs and moans, Frank makes a soft noise, something between soothing and an apology, like he's worried he's hurt Henry, and it's -- it's so much more than Henry could ever have prepared himself for.

After a few minutes, too long in Henry's mind, but possibly not long enough, if the way Frank's still diligently working him is any indication -- Henry finds he can't wait any more. If he lets himself, he'll stay just like this, gasping into Frank's chest hair as Frank fingers him into oblivion, and that's a great idea, rain check, but not what he wanted.

So he slaps Frank's shoulder, three sharp taps in short succession, before trying to sit up. As if he'd spoken his intent, Frank obediently pulls his fingers free, wiping them on the sheets and watching, rapt, as Henry sits up on his knees. The initial motion makes Henry bit back a whine, feeling Frank's cock still jutting hard and wet behind him, and then he shuffles into place, listening to Frank dribble more lube into his hand and stroke it over himself before Henry can reach back and get a hand on him.

Frank's cock is not the biggest Henry's taken, but it's thick and _hard,_ and when Henry starts working himself down on it, it takes every bit of his self control to keep himself quiet. Not silent -- he allows himself the breathy, shivering moans that have no real voice behind them, wanting to be able to hear the noises Frank's making.

Because Frank's very clearly less concerned about making noise. He's not loud, so Henry has to keep himself quiet so he doesn't miss anything, but Frank is clearly a moaner, eyes wide as Henry inches down until he's got Frank hilted in him. 

This is exactly as good as Henry had hoped, the stretch, the sense of fullness. There's the barest sense of strain, a burn that speaks to Henry's impatience in letting Frank finger him open, but that's good too, a sort of counterpoint that makes the brilliance of his pleasure all the sharper. 

When he lifts himself back up onto his knees, pulling almost entirely off and then lowers back down, faster this time, Frank utters a louder, choked-off groan, one of his hands coming to close on Henry's hip. He looks utterly dazed, lost in his own fog, and then Henry lifts himself up and comes down yet faster, and Frank's eyes squeeze shut with another moan.

It's amazing, the control, the pleasure just in that, in Frank's trust of him to be in the lead, the way Frank seems happy to lay against the bed and let Henry chase his pleasure. The hand on Henry's hip doesn't tighten, Frank makes no attempt to move Henry, whether to change the angle or to set a different pace; he makes no move at all to have control, but when Henry drags Frank's right hand off his hip and puts it on his cock, Frank grips him tight and sure and starts stroking without hesitation.

"You can cum when you get me off," Henry says, and then starts moving in earnest, fast and hard, as desperate as he'd always imagined only now he's the one setting that pace, he's the one mindless to anything but how bad he needs to cum, and Frank's the body gasping and shifting under him, struggling to keep up and give what's asked of him.

There's no way to make it last, and Henry finds he doesn't want to. He wants to cum and he wants to feel Frank cum, watch his face and feel him shoot off still deep inside. If Frank allows it, they can do this again and try for duration then, but this time Henry wants to fall back asleep feeling like he's been worked over as rough as any dream suggested he might be.

Maybe he says that, or maybe Frank just picks up on what Henry wants with every hitching, eager motion. It doesn’t really matter, all that matters is Frank’s grip tightening on him, on his hip and on his cock, rougher now as he encourages Henry to move faster, grinding up into him as he sinks down. That grip on his hip might leave bruises, and somehow that’s the thought, that’s the thing that makes him really come undone.

Frank’s hitting everything just right, and Henry can’t resist showing off just a little bit, arching his back in a way that’s more about letting Frank go just that little bit deeper. He’s skinny, never able or interested in putting on real muscle, and he’s still pale and a little tired-looking -- he knows he’s no sex god, but the way Frank’s breath catches in his throat puts a fiery bolt of pride through him and he cums hard, spilling over Frank’s hand and spattering his chest.

It doesn’t take much more after that for Frank. He looks stunned, and Henry doesn’t have to say anything more than a curt “stay,” for him to get the gist, grinding in one more time and cumming, hot and twitching, deep as he can get.

He wants to linger, but he also wants to lay down without getting jizz on himself, and he can’t manage that without gingerly pulling away, trying not to shudder at the hot wet slick of cum that follows Frank’s dick. Disgusting, and also so bizarrely intimate, sort of like the sight of Frank seemingly absentmindedly licking Henry’s cum off his fingers.

Wired and exhausted at the same time, Henry wobbles a moment before moving to lay beside Frank. It’s all too easy to let himself cuddle against him, resting his head on Frank’s sweaty shoulder like this is normal. 

“Don’t be gone in the morning,” he says softly, closing his eyes and breathing in the smell of Frank and sex. It feels like a risk, saying it flat out, making it an order, something to be defied if Frank wants to prove he’s still in charge.

Maybe it is. Maybe it will be. But Henry would regret not saying it, not making it known that he wants this, wants to stay.

And Frank doesn’t answer him, doesn’t promise anything, put he does put his arm around Henry’s bare shoulders and hold him there, kept close, and he turns his head to kiss Henry’s brow. He lets Henry fall back asleep like that, reaching back to flip the light back off as the air conditioner kicks back on and otherwise making no move to put distance between them again.

It’s enough, Henry tells himself as he drifts off again. Even if it’s just once, it’s enough, because it has to be. He falls asleep feeling warm and held, well-used and wanted.


	9. Spit-Shone Restless Hearts

Henry expects his sleep to be light and brief, and he expects to wake up alone. He's wrong on the first two, at least. At no point in the night had he thought to actually check the time -- late enough on an August night to be fully dark, that was all that registered, so he has no real idea how long it is he sleeps for the second time, but it's real, deep, refreshing sleep.

When he wakes up, the sun is filtering through the thin curtains and there's a moment of quiet confusion as he tries to orient in his mind where he is, how he got here, what exactly had happened in the last forty-eight hours. 

At the start, blinking into slow consciousness, he thinks at least part of his memory has to be falsified. Sometimes dreams can feel very real, and a dream was a lot easier to write off than Frank teasing him and fucking him as the reality he was expected to live with.

But he's sore in all the right ways to collaborate that memory, and there's a mess of dried cum between his thigh and the cheeks of his ass. The blanket tossed over him must have been acquired after all the fluids dried, while he was sleeping, because he has no memory of getting under the covers and nothing has stuck to him. 

The bed is empty aside from him, and so at first, blinking and processing and forcing himself to sit up and try to be awake, he imagines he must have been right to expect Frank to leave. 

Of course he'd been right. It would never matter to Frank if Henry asked him to stay, because that wasn't some heat of the moment, excused by passion sex thing. If Henry asked him not to leave, he'd probably only make sure to stick around until Henry fell asleep, because if Frank was planning on leaving, going their separate ways, then there wasn't much in the world that would change his mind.

Frank did whatever Frank wanted, regardless of how anyone else felt about it. He always had, and enjoying getting bossed around during sex didn't change anything.

Hell, maybe Henry asking him to stay had made it worse. If Frank decided that having someone wanting him around, or someone wanting to be close to him, was too dangerous, of course he'd leave. If he too Henry wanting him to stay as a risk to one or both of their safety in the long run, he'd bolt, and he'd probably think doing it while Henry was sleeping was the kinder way to go about it. 

With Frank, Henry knew the Mission would always come first. He'd known that when he registered that Frank, defying all logic, had shown up to save the day, and he'd known it when he grabbed that smoke grenade and rushed across the room to drag Frank to safety. He'd known it when he was abandoning his entire rebuilt life by sticking with Frank and trying to help.

Anyway, it wasn't like Frank was the first to get the fuck out of Dodge while Henry was sleeping it off. He liked to think most guys he hooked up with wouldn't have left him stranded in central Wisconsin with no cash and no ride, but for all he knew they would have done exactly that.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, blanket draped over his shoulders like a cloak, Henry takes a steadying breath and looks around the room, taking it in. The bottle of lube is back on the bedside table, less used that he'd thought, and the Walmart bag that had held their new clothes was dug through and rumpled on the chair by the desk. The entire first aid kit was missing, but Henry figured Frank probably needed it more than he did.

There's little signed, all over, of Frank having moved things around, and Henry tries not to be flattered by the idea of Frank moving carefully around him to let him sleep. Silly thing to be flattered about, when it had very little to do with not disturbing him and everything to do with Frank not wanting to talk about parting ways.

Not wanting to say flat out that he still knew what was best for both of them, not wanting to let Henry argue or try to change his mind. They've been through this bullshit before.

When Henry stands up, his legs ache pleasantly, thighs strained by the effort last night to stay balanced while spread wide enough to straddle Frank, plus the actual work out of riding dick. It's one of Henry's secret favourite things, the ache in his thighs and lower back after a particularly energetic fuck. Even if Frank's gone for good now, Henry's going to feel that ache for a long time, and he'll always have the memory.

He's poking around the desk, expecting -- or maybe hoping -- to find a note, and explanation or at least Frank's melancholic excuse for why it just  _ has  _ to be this way, when the bathroom door creaks open, making him jump.

Blanket abandoned on the bed, Henry had initially felt an utter lack of self-consciousness regarding wandering around the room naked. He was alone, and he was more interested in seeing what Frank had and hadn't taken with him when he left, and so there was no reason to bother with covering himself up before he meandered in for a shower. 

The bathroom door opening makes him jump, and for one wild moment, before he gets a look at who it is, Henry expects a stranger, or worse, the ancient motel clerk. Because it can't be Frank; Frank's left. It'll be someone else, someone come in to turn down the room, or hide in the bathroom to ambush him now that he was alone.

No mistaking that breadth of shoulder, though, the way that frame fills out the doorway. Frank steps into the light, every bit as naked as Henry, his hair still matted down from the shower, the first aid kit dangling from one hand. His leg has been freshly -- sloppily -- re-bandaged. 

From across the room, he gives Henry a look that is both surprised and amused. Surprised Henry's awake, maybe, or surprised by the way he jumped. Definitely amused by the way he's trying to cover himself with one hand while reaching hopelessly toward the bed like he has any way to reach that far for something to preserve his modesty.

"I thought you left," Henry says flatly, lowering his hands slowly to his sides. He's too stunned to help himself from saying it, and it feels a little like by giving voice to the idea, it'll become real -- by saying it, Frank will vanish.

Instead, Frank has the gall to look both confused and vaguely offended, furrowing his brow and moving to sit on the edge of the bed. "You asked me not to."

_You asked me not to,_ like Henry didn't have good reason to think his asking wouldn't matter.

Henry bites back the urge to say something to that effect. How many times in the past had Frank dismissed him, or left him, or chased him off because it was  _ Frank’s  _ opinion, for whatever reason, that going their separate ways was for the best? When in the past had Henry's wants or needs ever held a candle to the demands of Frank's Mission? The implication that Henry only ever had to ask for Frank to stay is laughable, and Frank has to know it.

The way he's carefully looking down at his own slap-job bandaging instead of meeting Henry's eyes suggests he definitely does. 

And maybe that's the point. Maybe Henry's supposed to fight him about it, so it'll be Henry's fault in the end when Frank storms off. 

Or, maybe not. This isn't a situation they've ever been in before -- maybe, in this context, Frank sees Henry asking him not to leave in the night as a valid request. That's a little harder to believe, but then again, so is the whole rest of their situation. Hell, the whole rest of their history is a little hard to believe.

There's no point, even if Frank expects him to argue, of indulging in it. Henry's had enough therapy and enough time to grow as a person to know that sometimes, you have to just let the bait pass.

He gestures vaguely to Frank's injured leg instead, shaking his head. That attempt at changing the bandages really is a travesty, a gauze pad held on with what looks like a Band-aid and too little wrapping, twisted and too tight. There's already blood showing through the gauze, implying that Frank reopened the wound in the shower, and the overall effect of it is messy and uncomfortable.

"You could have woken me up," Henry says, moving away from the desk and taking the first aid kit from beside Frank. He kneels on the floor beside Frank and opens the kit beside him, pulling out the cheap scissors to cut away the gauze.

Frank shrugs, accepting the change in subject and tone without comment, adding a few points of credence to the idea that he really  _ wasn’t  _ fishing for an argument.

"Bathroom's a little crowded for me to manage on my own," Frank says blandly, watching Henry work. Henry's carefully watching his own hands, focusing on the task he's taken on, but he can see in the corner of his eyes that Frank's digging his fingers into the bed, like he needs to anchor himself. "Figured you'd help after you got some rest."

It's strangely domestic, given that he's packing and wrapping a bullet wound for a famous vigilante. Henry uses alcohol wipes to sterilize his hands, since he hasn't showered or even gotten to take a piss yet today, and then he finishes taking Frank's attempt apart, tossing them in a little pile beside him before replacing them. 

When the job is done, Frank's hand grazes over Henry's hair, rough palm rasping over the close shave Henry still prefers, then shifting to cup his cheek when Henry looks up. He's never seen such a genuinely tender look on Frank's face, not even when they were in the middle of fucking last night. Henry feels a flutter of muted lust conflicting with something softer and more complicated as he lets himself lean into Frank's hand.

The moment feels loaded with potential, quiet and warm, Frank staring down at him with those cool blue eyes. One of them could move, could say something, but they don't -- and Henry can't speak for Frank, he never could, but for him the idea of saying the wrong thing, moving the wrong way, looms too large to break; he needs time to process, to proceed correctly. Because this thing building between them is fragile, and he desperately doesn't want to break it.

The air conditioner rattles to life, the thin curtains shift in the barest breeze, and the spell breaks. Henry stands and heads to the bathroom, intent on a shower before breakfast, and by the time he's rinsing the last of the soap off, Frank's followed him. 

Frank climbs into the shower behind him, he turns Henry away from the spray and kisses him, and then, without a word, Frank gets on his knees. There's some kind of communication happening here, wordless and powerful, but Henry's having a little trouble parsing the nuances of it. He's too busy with the riddle of Frank on his knees, Frank with his nose buried in Henry's pubic hair, taking Henry's cock into his throat with the eager ease of a man very practiced in the art, Frank gripping his ass and nudging his hips forward, encouraging Henry to fuck his mouth,  _ Frank on his knees. _

When Henry cums, he expects Frank to pull off and spit, to get up and leave as silently as he arrived. Frank swallows everything and sits back on his heels, this quaking as he takes himself in hand and strokes himself off, cum splashing into the water circling the drain between Henry's feet, and Henry can't take his eyes off him, hand still braced on one of Frank's shoulders. Frank presses his forehead to the ridge of Henry’s hip; he finishes panting against Henry’s thigh and it feels like a confession, or an oath.

Afterwards, changing the bandages one more time despite Frank’s protests that they weren’t  _ that _ wet, they sit down and eat. Henry sits at the desk and finishes his salad from the night before, Frank takes his coffee in the ancient drip pot and sits on the end of the bed, chewing through two CLIF bars. 

It’s domestic and simple and completely unsustainable. The nicer it feels, the easier it seems, taking his own paper cup of bitter coffee and sitting next to Frank on the bed, clean and half dressed and momentarily aimless, the worse the omnipresent knowledge that this cannot last becomes.

Henry wonders if they’re both avoiding mentioning it, or if this is easy for Frank now. Is there some point where moments like this can be compartmentalized from all the rest?

“What comes next?” Henry asks finally, when he can’t take it anymore. They’ve emptied the coffee pot, Henry’s gathered up their trash and stuffed it into a bag while Frank fussed the bed back into something like order. Half motions to leave, like they’re ready to go, or maybe just idle ways to pass the time and keep borrowed space neat. 

They’re laying on the bed again, together. Henry lays on his side, fingers in the book he hasn’t managed to read a word of; Frank lays on his back, watching the ceiling. Straightened up, ready to go, laying around waiting for the moment.

“I’m going back to Chicago,” Frank says finally. “Wasn’t finished there. This wasn’t too bad of a detour.”

Henry remembers how this works for Frank. Skipping town after a public confrontation and looping back around to it in the immediate aftermath was tactical. Chances are, whoever he was after would have let their guard down, and Frank didn’t do jobs by halves. 

But that only answers half the question, and Henry waits, for the other shoe to drop or Frank’s blunted concept of mercy, until that silence stretches too long as well, forcing him to prod further. “What about me,” he asks, feeling childish and bitter for it -- he needs to know and it’s not childish to want to know what’s expected to come next.

Frank rolls onto his side behind Henry, hand on Henry’s waist and forehead to the curve of Henry’s skull. “Been thinking about that,” Frank admits, and that’s soothing despite the complicated tightness in Henry’s chest. “Got a couple options.”

This Henry knows _is_ childish -- the way he wants to tell Frank he doesn’t need options, just to be told what to do. Maybe it’s childish, too, that he wants Frank to tell him to stay with him, that he volunteered for another tour of duty. If Frank _tells_ _him,_ if he takes away the choice of it, then it’ll be okay to resent needing to stay when it all gets dangerous again. If he stays because he wants to stay, there’s only himself to blame.

Childish, and Henry’s not a child. 

“I got money. Could take you somewhere, get you a car, give you enough to carry you for a while, till you settle somewhere new.” 

When Henry starts to bristle, Frank kisses the back of his neck, soothing like Henry’s already worked up to the point of screaming. As it is, he’s biting back the urge to say something entirely out of line, something that would break the easy quiet between them and spoil the afternoon. 

“But,” Frank goes on when Henry doesn’t acknowledge that option. “I could use an extra set of eyes. Someone who knows the area. You know how it goes, if you stick with me. The risks, the bullshit. And I know you’re not gonna stab me in the back.”

Eyes closed, Henry tries to keep his breathing steady, something heavy and choking clenching around his heart. The hand Frank’s had resting on his waist drifts up, over Henry’s bare chest, palm to his breast bone as Frank shifts to spoon up fully behind him. Like this, there’s no way Frank can’t feel his hammering heart, his racing pulse.

It’s tempting to ask what Frank wants. Maybe if he did, Frank would even tell him. It would be nice to hear it, explicitly stated, but Henry knows Frank -- he knows his body language, he knows the way he prioritizes, he knows Frank would see Henry making him say it plain as mistrust. It wouldn’t cheapen it, but it would tarnish the offer, to make Frank grit his teeth and say, flat out, that he wants Henry to stay.

And staying -- Frank’s right. Henry does know what that entails. He’d worked very hard to bury his past, and he’d liked having work friends and hooking up on the weekend with men who wore their anger and roughness like a coat they could shrug off in private. He’d liked his job, his normal, tax-paying, schedule-keeping day-to-day.

For all his work, all the therapy, all the careful vagueness about his past and outright lies about his family and why he’d moved to Chicago, Henry had never moved on from Frank. He’d made a life in Chicago, and it had been a good life. There was safety in that life, implied understanding that following the rules and keeping his head down meant living a long life, a life without fear of dying gruesomely at any moment.

He’d spent the last decade looking over his shoulder, terrified and hopeful in equal measure of his past catching up. Holding his breath, waiting, all while telling himself he hadn’t been.

“After Chicago?” He asks, looking for clarity, accepting that Frank wants him to stay. “Once the job’s done, then what?”

Frank smiles against the back of Henry’s neck, and just that eases something in his chest, makes him feel a little less anxious. “I’m not gonna tie you to me,” he says. “You’re grown. You can decide after if you really wanna get back into this. I’m not drafting you, and I’m not making you stick with it.”

When Henry starts to turn over, Frank moves compliantly to let him, shifting back to avoid catching an elbow to the ribs or worse, but once they’re face to face again, his hand is right back on Henry’s side. It feels so easy still, casual contact, and Henry imagines that’s as much of a sign that he’s made his choice before he asked the question as he needs.

“So when do we leave,” he asks, and watches Frank’s eyes crease at the corner as he pulls Henry in, reeling him in for a kiss that says everything Frank will likely never give voice to. Gratitude and delight and satisfaction. 

“We got this bed for a whole ‘nother night,” Frank says. “Might as well get our money’s worth.”


End file.
